Synopsis: Into the Heavens

After a few minutes you were able to figure out that you were in some sort of rotating space station (colloquially, a “carousel”) and that you were near the hub. Farallon pressed Mirella for information on where exactly you were and how you got there. Seems that Mirella, though Elven, is not from Palladium, but rather Erysterai, a world which orbits Gliese 876. She is part of the Misarlon, but that is only the Palladium name for a larger group known throughout the Cognoverse (known set of systems and colonies) as M7.

M7 starts with Fermi's paradox which briefly put states that given the theoretical number of planets that could support life and advanced civilizations it is improbably that we should find so very few races living among the stars. Research over the years found that there were, in fact, as many civilizations as Fermi's equations suggested; they were just all extinct, and not by natural causes, or so it came to be understood. So M7 was formed a very long time ago to help safeguard the newer races that had appeared in the galactic scene. It is believed that these other extinct races had attracted the attention of something known as the Inhibitors. Races that tried to expand boundaries of travel too far or had used “runic” energy tended to attracted this unwanted attention, so M7 tries to keep the profile of the human races and its neighbors below the radar of the Inhibitors.

Not wanting to just sit around, you all decide to take an elevator ride down to the outer ring of the station where the gravity approaches something normal, but you unfortunately disturb the denizens of this semi-derelict station, a group of Juicers who want to play. You all race back up to the hub where Treasda and Lodos seal the safety hatches and Landros (using Eldvöð) heats up the locking rings to become untouchable, buying you all enough time for Oki to telehack into the computer system. Oki gets you all clearance to the shuttle bay and prewarms a craft for you to leave. By this time the Juicers have armed the station's weapons and are merely waiting for you to leave the bay before they destroy you. Mirella calculates that even at the 10G maximum thrust, the Juicers will have more than enough time to pick you off as you leave. Agar Prime devises a scheme to clear the bay at 10G's, which will render everyone else unconscious, and then swing the nose around and unleash the shuttle meager fury at the other ship in the bay and the bay itself. Seconds before this plan can be executed a very large dark shadow slides between the station and the gas giant below. It is a lighthugger. With nothing to lose, you follow through with Agar's plan. It works splendidly, and a fraction of a second later the lighthugger send out a series of beams that reduces the station into a shimmering cascade of tiny metal pieces.

A radio hail from the lighthugger, “Nostalgia for Infinity”, informs you that you have been arbitrarily selected to join their crew. You oblige.

On board you meet Volya, a female triumvirate of the ship and head of weapons and engineering, Sajaki, triumvirate number two, unstable megalomaniac, and Jermea, the third wheel. There is also Kori, a crew member as well as Glaston and Ephemera, both highly chimeric Ultras. Oki tries to bond with the ship and encounters a force, “Sun-Stealer”. The mere mention of Sun-Stealer makes Sajaki very mad...

To make a complicated story short, the crew is looking for a cure for the captain ,who has the melding plaque, a disease which causes the nano-chines in his body to run amok and begun melding into other things. In this case the captain is melding into the ship and has bonded with about ten percent of it. Sajaki believes that the answer can be found on Palladium, but because that system is so far away and dangerous to get to, they will travel to Anasaria and use the Rifts. Fast forward through a six year stint in hibernation and you wake up to find that this entity, Sun-Stealer is trying to destroy the entire planet of Anasaria. Apparently it does'nt want the rifts open and believes that if they are not closed the Inhibitors will come and destroy everyone. Oki is able to determine that Sun-Stealer is about a billion year old entity.

The story that emerges is that billions of years ago several races ascended to the stars and fell into conflict with each other. The war between these races lasted so many millions of years that it became impossible to tell how many races had ever been involved in the war, since the races had evolved so much over the course of the conflict. Eventually, all but one race disappeared from the conflict, those that became known as the Inhibitors. From that point forward the Inhibitors prevented any other such war from starting by preventing any race from ever achieving the technology necessary. It has been between three or four billion years since the end of the Dawn War. Sun-Stealer's people learned all of this about the Dawn War once they had stirred the hornets nest and just before they were destroyed.