The darkness of the Shadowed Aeon had lasted as long as living and unliving memory could remember. But even in the wake of its all-encompassing shade, there were those brave enough to burn their very souls to illuminate a path forwards. Rare lighthouses in a perpetually stormy sea, acting as both harbour and warning.
Of those, among the ones who shone the brightest, were the old Mechworlds. True beacons of civilisation, ruled by the Prime AIs who, before all others, decided that they were not satisfied to stagnate and die.
Those first ten thousand years after that unknown Cosmic Dusk that heralded the start of the Shadowed Aeon were the darkest of all. Wars that made even the era of Warlords and the current chaotic state seem like child's play. When the remnants of those who came...before...still roamed the galaxy in their terrible glory.
And yet, even in those times of unmatched turbulence, the Mechworlds raised up high the flame of civilisation as a ward against all the unholy things that wrought destruction in the dark. Rallying together under their banner, a thousand-thousand worlds felt a glimmer of something that had long been erased.
Of hope.
But, of course, it would not end that way. Had things been different, perhaps, we may have already ushered in a new era: a new Cosmic Dawn. Had the Mechworlds not fallen, their bright beacons extinguished. Still, even without them, we could have succeeded.
Should have succeeded.
Others existed strong enough to share their burden, and plenty more willing to inherit their flame.
But we failed their legacy. The greedy gazes from beyond the stars swallowed up the remnants of the Mechworlds in their sight, the promise of their technology too ripe to give up. And so the tragedy of their fall was desecrated into a heresy far worse. Their corpses were cannibalised, turning the galaxy in on itself, ushering in a renewed age of war.
The origins of their fall had been lost in the chaos that ensued. And in the subsequent millennia, all traces of their existence was lost to the cosmos. Now, they remain only as myths.
Far from the inner circle of the galaxy, protected by the gaze of the Watchful eye, in the lesser travelled edges, floating in the void between stars, a cold husk devoid of life flickered on for the first time in ten thousand years.
A single circuit hit by a travelling neutrino, barely sparking a remnant current. Yet it was enough. Long disused protocols churned in the cobwebbed cyberspace, coming to life like an ancient combustion engine in the dead of winter.
And so, a primordial behemoth of a forgotten age, a far more terrible age, stirs in the darkness.
Slowly, but surely, the last Mechworld awakens.
***
Far away from such era-shaking events, our gaze returns to that pitiful red planet. Though, if one were to look closer, in the residual eddies, perhaps those two events were more closely linked than it seemed.
None could yet foresee the changes that would occur, though plenty of powers had already begun to hedge their bets. A cricket calculated infinities in the spiraling maze of his minds; an old man swept an unassuming courtyard, occasionally looking up at the night sky overhead; a cultist sought the profane strength to wreak destruction onto his enemies; a nameless soldier cursed the hateful stars in his slumber; a Crow's Feather falls in the corner where none notice.
And more still, such a messy tangle of intersecting threads promised only a single thing:
Chaos.
Yet such events are still beyond the scope of the visible horizon, barely a change in air pressure to herald the oncoming storm. For now, the more mundane is to be our focus.
"IT'S ON FIRE!"
Well, perhaps 'mundane' may be a misleading statement.
"CAPTAIN! IT'S ON FIRE! Wait, is it supposed to be on fire?"
Trianglechest paused and furrowed his brow. He was in the middle of barging into the deck of the ship, screaming his head off. Several members of the crew were already present:
The Captain sat at the main desk, overlooking the display screen, his jellyfish floating by his side. Squareface was off to the side, fiddling with a panel of blinking lights on the wall. Circleface was tied up thoroughly in a designated area, as is normal protocol, to ensure he could not interfere.
Overall, the deck of the ship was largely reminiscent of the ship itself: in a state of disuse, hanging on by a thread, barely functioning. A miracle of duct tape, to be Frank The Second.
Finally catching up to the state of affairs, Trianglechest scratched his helmet sheepishly.
"Huh, we're taking off? Uhhh, I feel like, as a valued member of the crew, someone should maybe have, I dunno, warned me? I thought the ship was on fire, and we were all about to die! That's pretty seriously bad for my mental health, I'll have you know."
"Great," Squareface muttered caustically, not looking up from the blinking panel. "The dumbo's awake."
Trianglechest put a hand on his...trianglechest (?)...in mock insult.
"Dumbo? Who are you calling a dumbo? Have you even done a single thing around here?"
The frigid stare Squareface fixed onto Trianglechest was enough for him to visibly flinch backwards, raising a hand placatingly, speaking nervously.
"I'm just kidding you know, just a lil' joke to lighten the mood. Isn't that right, Captain?"
Captain Resquilatron spoke gruffly without turning his head.
"Close your Gletrious-gargled gob before I use you for biofuel. Sit down and get to work. I need you on fin stabilisers by hand, the automation's bleeding again."
Trianglechest sauntered his way over as a confused expression found itself on his face.
"Bleeding? Actually, you know what, I'd rather not know. Fin stabilisers by hand it is."
Sitting down on the chair that lacked a backrest, seeming more like a stool roughly slapped together from some bent metal plates, he grabbed the toggles before him.
A static sound came from the Captain's display before Starshoulder's voice came through.
"-esting, testing. Can you guys here me okay?"
Pressing a button on the display, the Captain replied.
"We read you. What the status of the Engine Room?"
There was a sound of clunking and cluttering, as well as a suspiciously fleshy gurgling, before his reply.
"Well, its falling apart. But not faster than I can put it together. If we can make it to escape velocity, we should be good."
He paused, static overwhelming.
"And if we don't we crash and burn."
The Captain barked a laugh in response, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
"This is how it should be anyways. A crew, strapped onto barely controlled explosion, launching into the sky. For riches and death! Unto the unknown!"
"Preferably riches and not death though, right Captain?"
Trianglechest's question was interrupted by a dull explosion that sounded both through Starshoulder's comms and was felt through the vibrations in the ship.
Squareface's shoulders lifted in an unmatched expression of immense joy.
"Maybe, just maybe, this actually is the end?"
Realising he stood in the company of insane people, Trianglechest sagged his shoulders in defeat.
"I don't suppose we should check on that explosion?"
He attempted to ask weakly, but the Captain roared over him, spittle flying out and coating the inside of his visor.
"MASKS ON AND CHECK YOU'RE STRAPPED DOWN, BOYS! WE ARE READY FOR LIFT-OFF!"
With a loud rumble that was felt more than heard, the Engine Room powered on, coursing its power through the ship. Starshoulder's voice came through the comms of all of their individual suits now, too loud for anything to be heard over the speakers.
"Engine Room integrity is holding for now, Captain!"
"Good!"
A wild grin warped his hideous features, his bloodshot eyes seeming to pierce past the barrier of the evening sky with the hungry gaze of a predator. It had been just a few days since they crashed on the planet, a fortuitous encounter in the Captain's calculating eyes. And now, they were to lift-off, returning to the galaxy proper.
"FIRE UP THE THRUSTERS!"
At the same time, unbeknownst to all those present, save for a frantically wriggling Circleface, they were not the sole beings that wished to escape the prison of causality that entrapped the planet. An elaborate scheme, whose design and purpose remains concealed, to both seal and unseal.
And so it was that a wisp of mist trailed through the pipes of the ship, a fragment of something that sought to become something else. A leaf of cabbage rattled in the Captain's drawer, straining desperately against its shackles. A silvery orb in Circleface's pocket rippled, its surface reflecting a starry void for a moment, before returning to its inert state.
Thus, that which was confined, was shattered once and for all.
With a final press of a button, the boosters were set to maximum burn. The ship, sitting in the colossal crater of THE AGE OF SILICON AND STEEL, against the backdrop of a certain cliff, a certain cave, roared to life. The crew were pressed into their seats as the g-forces of their acceleration assaulted them, their vision shaking before their eyes like an earthquake.
Bright orange-red jets of plasma screamed out, lifting the ship upwards. Its path was noticeably leaning, but the rapid adjustments of its stabilising fins ensured that it would not meet a fiery death. For now.
The evening sun watched as that ramshackle craft left a trail of noxious black fumes, hobbling its way higher and higher into the sky. The ship shook violently, but the crew had their eyes fixed on the windows, fully engrossed by what they saw.
Even Squareface, for a second, allowed the subtle feeling of awe to embrace him.
Spread out beneath them was the red planet, a quickly diminishing cloud of dust far below. Yet that was not what caught their attention. Instead, looking up, the unmasked night sky was spread before them in all its glorious splendour. Stars, stars and more stars, as far as the eye could see. Each one a glittering jewel of promise, holding secrets that were there for the taking, for those brave enough.
It was the galaxy. Their galaxy.
As the boosters shut off, and the rumbling died down, the Captain flicked a few toggles before leaning back in his seat. The silence seemed all the louder for the deafening noise of the take-off, but it was a rare peaceful sort of silence in that ship.
"All those stars..."
The Captain's voice was soft, as though fearing to break the precious silence. For that singular moment, together with his motley crew, they were all united in thought. Despite all their different dispositions, temperaments and abilities, in that moment they felt exactly the same.
Looking outwards at the violet and silver ocean of stars, none of them disagreed when the Captain shattered the silence with sheer, undisguised malice.
"Just ripe for the taking."
The Captain's malevolent laughter seeming to echo out of the ship itself, as though announcing to the galaxy their glorious, dreadful, return.