Dark clouds gather on the horizon of time.
For millennia, the superpowers have coexisted in peace. For thousands of years the Unity and the Elysian Accord occupied their own portions of reality, carrying on with their business and expanding into unclaimed territory. The two Powers saw no reason to enter into conflict with each other—why fight the equally well-equipped enemy for contested territory when there is still much to be easily exploited?
This status quo did not last.
The Unity, though outwardly monolithic and one in mind and goal, is composed of many member states, each with their own agendas, war plans, demands, and prejudices. The Ruling Council is thus, by necessity, an uneven clash of ideologies held together only by the common goal of expansion, conquest, and progress. They can grow and prosper, but only when there are frontiers and common enemies for the member states to divide, defeat, and be distracted by.
The Elysian Accord, in contrast, must contend with the will of its people. As long as new frontiers, uncolonized worlds, and uncharted sectors still exist, those discontent with the corruption, nepotism, and tribalist politics of the Accord can seek new lives beyond the edge of civilization. The Elysian Congress, shackled by the limiting legislation of the Accord, cannot force the system to change, and the signatories are unwilling to give up their current ways. To them, the frontier serves as a method of accounting for the internal pressure from the public. As long as these frontiers exist in some capacity, the Accord can discharge its restless people away from its centers of politics and economy and defer necessary but uncomfortable change.
As time progressed, both Powers found it increasingly difficult to prospect for new frontiers. Both their various methods of superluminal travel and their Jump Gates have begun acting increasingly erratic the further they are from charted space. Expeditions to nearby galaxies that should take only a few years are dragged out of superluminal travel by strange disturbances. Jump Gates calibrated to new realms require exponentially more power to activate, and the farther that the Powers tried to expand, the worse it became.
By the end of the 7th Millennium, the two Powers approached their maximum territorial span. Expedition Forces could not enter superluminal travel past a certain distance from civilization, and no amount of power could coax the Jump Gates to open rifts to new realms. Initially unconcerned with this development, the Powers turned their attention inwards. They turned to the star systems that they have passed by during their initial expansion, as well as systems that can be stripped for resources to raise megastructures of incredible scale. In place of untamed worlds away from the prying eyes of the Ruling Council and their Ministry of Internal Security or the petty disputes of the Congress and their powerful backers, the Powers substitute in ever greater feats of architecture and technology.
This would stave off the inevitable for another millennium.
As the 9th Millennium began, however, the tension had grown to visible heights.
Though there were still many worlds and systems to exploit for resources, the idea of the frontier has disappeared. New settlements no longer had the frontier’s worldly feel; instead, fully developed systems surrounded them on all sides. The colonists felt less akin to pioneers bringing the torch of civilization into the dark and more akin to migrants in the same gray landscape. With no true frontiers to serve as outlets for their discontent, the people of both the Unity and the Elysian Accord grew restless. Demands for checks and balances and reforms against entrenched elites increased in volume and intensity.
The Ruling Council understood fully that their continued existence relies on the existence of new frontiers. The Imperial Dream was fabricated with one major goal – to unite all mankind, and later many alien species as well, under one banner and one ideology. Once the Imperial Dream and its promises of endless expansion and progress grinds to a halt, the people will soon see that the only way to have more is to take from each other and descend back into the mutual conflict that the Unity initially sought to bring to an end. With no other external enemies, real or perceived, literal or metaphorical, to rally the people against, the individual member states will slowly but surely splinter away.
The individual members of the Elysian Congress understood that despite all the reforms that have been enacted over these ten millennia, there are still fundamental flaws that reside in the Accord’s political structure. The frontier distracts the people and the signatory states as they put their attention outward, and once the frontier disappears the people will see for themselves the failures of the system and demand reform. Many of the signatories have become accustomed to the current ways and are averse to change, and the Congress was concerned that the resulting unrest and instability, caused by the clash of wills between the citizens and the powerful, may open up a fatal weakness in the Accord and lead to the Unity devouring them in one final crusade of conquest.
And it was in this context that the Keyhole Observation occurred.
Both Powers have worked fruitlessly to try and decipher the cause of the disturbances and anomalies inhibiting their progress. Despite their concerted efforts, neither side could find a solution or explanation for these disturbances. The curtain remains draped over any hope of further expansion. Centuries passed with no progress, and both sides contended with internal unrest and calls for reform.
On 021.498.09, concerted research efforts by both sides simultaneously and unintentionally opened unstable rifts in their territory. Though these rifts decayed and fizzled out after a mere few minutes, the probes sent through these rifts revealed several facts. First, the two rifts led to the same location in the destination realm. Probes from both the Unity and the Elysian Accord obtained visual identification of one another and the rifts through which each exited from. Second, their destinations are not within each other’s territory. A quick scan of the skybox indicated no advanced civilization of any form within the vicinity of the rifts. Most importantly, however, the rifts are situated within an elliptical galaxy on a scale which has never been seen by either side. Given the few minutes of data the probes collected before the rifts collapsed, the galaxy is predicted to contain up to fifteen orders of magnitudes of stars, exceeding the total holdings of both Powers fully by one hundred times.
Initial confusion quickly turned to panic and cold, palpable fear as the rifts sealed and both sides understood the enormity of the situation. Whoever opens a stable path to the other side first will have its unimaginable riches at their disposal, and the other side will have no chance of recovery. The Keyhole Observation, as this event would be known, would signal the beginning of the end.
Cold war replaced tense peace as the Unity and the Accord sought to outdo each other and be the first to generate a stable rift. The unstable rifts, generated without the stabilizing factor of a Jump Gate and with short discharges of large amounts of energy, dissipate quickly if not sustained. Given the constraints of a Jump Gate capable of sustaining such a rift and the power output required to maintain its continued existence, it would be no easy task. But with the industrial capacities of many galaxies mobilized for this task, the question is not if but when.
The Space Race, as it would be known, was also successful in drawing the attention of the people away from hatred and internal issues to the allure of the other side of the Keyhole. This would not last forever, however, and both sides were well aware.
As the days of the 9th Millennium ticked towards the final hour, the fear of defeat and loss of relevance grew into increasingly desperate and heavy-handed attempts to undermine each other’s advancements. Espionage, assassinations, proxy wars, and terrorist attacks became the norm as the Unity and the Accord utilized every possible method to slow the other side’s development and accelerate their own. They saw it as a necessity—a regrettable but required evil that will pave the way to a far greater future. If a few innocent must perish so that they can ascend, then so be it.
It was with this mindset that, during a secret convention sometime in 968.09, the Unity’s Ruling Council decided that they must escalate the interference. The Research and Development Institute is nearing a breakthrough in constructing a Jump Gate capable of threading the Keyhole, and what little information they recovered from their agents indicate that the Accord is also approaching the endgame. They must take drastic actions and do so immediately, as the Imperator Eternal said, or be left behind in the footnotes of history—even if it means authorizing a First Strike and eradicating nearly half of all sentient life with a swarm of planet-killers. The Elysian Accord will no doubt counter this with its own equally devastating retaliation strike, but it is a price the Council is willing to pay. The death tolls will be temporary, but the Imperial Dream will be eternal.
As the Beholder describes it, this will be their Final Solution.
And so begins the war that would end all wars.
For none will live to see its end.
