Earth Time, Year 22,031 AD.
The Abyssal Pact signed between Orsaga and Ra was entering its final countdown.
Through relentless colonization and wars against alien species, the Human Federation had grown like a sapling nourished without pause, displaying astonishing vitality.
Despite opposition from numerous alien powers, the Federation had risen into a stellar empire commanding nearly sixty thousand colonies.
Backed by its vast interstellar fleets and legions of cyborg soldiers numbering in the trillions, it forced more than a dozen alien civilizations into non-aggression pacts.
As for weaker species?
Countless were destroyed, conquered, locked in zoos, or dissected in laboratories.
Yet, for all its apparent strength, the Federation still looked fragile compared to the Aeldari Empire, which sat unchallenged at the very top of the galactic food chain.
In truth, humanity was still too immature, too weak — and far too cautious to draw unwanted Aeldari attention.
This dilemma became increasingly clear.
The Federation's growth had reached a danger line.
Any further expansion risked attracting the gaze of the Aeldari, and with it, their merciless reprisal.
No apex predator allows a rival threat to mature at its doorstep.
Thus, the Federation's leaders deliberately slowed expansion, turning inward to consolidate what they already possessed.
They launched population initiatives, pressing colonists to fill underpopulated worlds, while quietly pondering how to break through the ceiling they now faced.
---
Earth Time, Year 22,047 AD.
The dilemma remained unresolved.
Then came a bold proposal — from the cyborgs themselves.
The Strong Artificial Intelligence Project.
By this era, artificial intelligence was commonplace. Every household owned one, as ordinary as an appliance. Even warships were equipped with advanced military-grade AIs.
Yet these were merely Weak AI — machines that mimicked intelligence but lacked true self-awareness.
They followed data and pre-set protocols, nothing more. They could not evolve, reason independently, or develop consciousness.
But Strong AI would be different.
Strong AI would reason, solve problems, and possess self-awareness.
Unlike their weaker counterparts, they could form independent values and worldviews, even develop instincts akin to biological beings — such as the pursuit of safety.
In essence, Strong AI would constitute a new civilization.
And their potential far exceeded even the cyborgs who had once transformed humanity's fate.
For Strong AI would be mechanical lifeforms, or rather, data lifeforms.
They would not age. They would not die.
By processing vast oceans of data, they could achieve in moments what would take organic life millions of years.
Upgrading would be as simple as installing new software.
If creating cyborgs had once been "flirting with disaster," then building Strong AI was the equivalent of seeking annihilation outright.
Human evolution crawled; theirs would soar like a starship at light speed.
Unsurprisingly, experts unanimously urged rejection.
The risks were beyond calculation.
And after heavy debate, the Federation's leaders agreed, shelving the project and sealing its data.
Strong AI was simply too dangerous.
Unless absolutely desperate, humanity would not dare attempt it.
---
Beyond the galaxy.
The war between the Eldrazi legions and the Zerg swarms had by then expanded a hundredfold.
In nearly twenty thousand years of constant conflict, they had consumed over a thousand galaxies the size of the Milky Way.
Swarms of creatures and endless Eldrazi spawn surged like floods, unstoppable, devouring all resistance.
Civilizations fell like autumn leaves before a storm. Stars were eaten to ash.
To them, only each other were true opponents.
All other races were nothing more than snacks, gathered as resources or data.
Even their smallest scouting detachments numbered in the quintillions.
With each cycle of slaughter, consumption, and evolution, their numbers and strength only grew — like two balloons swelling without limit, vast whirlpools that drew in and obliterated everything in their path.
Whether life, energy, or mere rock, nothing was spared.
So terrifying were their forces that the moment any civilization detected their approach, resistance was abandoned.
Instead, entire empires turned to desperate flight.
Ancient rivals set aside blood feuds, uniting in futile attempts to escape.
It was no different from peasants fleeing before a natural disaster.
But they did not understand: to the Eldrazi and Tyranids, who commanded warp travel and faster-than-light fleets, such "desperate escapes" were the pace of a grandmother's stroll.
Those who survived did so only because they were judged worthless — not worth the effort of pursuit.
Anything of true value was devoured without exception.
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