The History

2943–2945 – The Silence of the Stars

“It did not begin with a war. It began with a flicker. A signal. A scream drowned in the static of the stars.”
— Benedikt Verril, survivor of a colony on Tiber II

Tiber II – A tragedy among many.

It was an ordinary day on Tiber II, that rust-colored desert on the edge of known space. The sky hung over the world like a dull copper plate, shimmering with heat, torn by the dancing reflections of the mining towers that rose like rusted spears against the burning sun.

Benedikt Verril sat in his dust-covered Cyclone, an all-purpose vehicle that crawled over the dunes with a grinding rumble. The crack in the seal of his helmet visor vibrated slightly with the rough ride, and the constant hiss of the filters reminded him that a single malfunction would be his death sentence. He had been on the road for twelve hours, and the sun was hanging low over the horizon, a glowing sphere of fire that bathed the world in a bloody orange.

Verril worked for a local company as a “spotter” — a man who tracked down copper deposits that, ideally, were larger than the dreams of his supervisors. The sensors on his dashboard blinked lazily. Still no signal. Only the murmur of the desert and the crackle of the radio, alive only with static whispers.

He was tired. Not from the work, but from existence itself. His face was carved by the local sun and searing heat, his hair clung in strands to his forehead, and his suit looked as though the sand had chiseled it from stone. Inside his helmet was an old photograph — his wife Lyra and his daughter Nessa. It was yellowed, the edges burned from the oxygen blower. He looked at it briefly, smiled faintly. Then back into the endless wasteland.

And then — the sound came. A dull, vibrating rumble, far away, barely audible. At first he thought it was an underground quake. Maybe even one of the mining machines collapsing. But it didn’t come from below. It came from above.

He stopped the Cyclone. The howl of the turbines faded, while the wind seemed to freeze for a moment. Only the patter of fine sand on the hull remained. And then it came again. A second sound — louder, metallic, unnatural. Like the screech of tearing steel carried through the thin atmosphere, followed by a strange, thunderous hum.

Benedikt looked up and dimmed his visor. Something was visible in the sky — a glowing point, moving. Fast. Far too fast. Within heartbeats it became a streak of fire. Then two. Then dozens, followed by bursts of light. The silence of the desert gave way to a chorus of chaos. Glowing debris passed over Benedikt and fell like burning rain across the sea of dunes. The sky was no longer a sky — it was a battlefield. An inferno of ash, fire, and death.

In orbit, a battle raged that no one had announced. Freighters burned like torches in the firmament, and among them darted shadowy fighters — fast, precise, merciless. They moved like predators ready to finish their prey. No transmission, no warning, no help. Only death raining down in metallic sparks upon the world of Tiber II.

His heart raced as he stared at the sky in disbelief. His breaths quickened, the hiss of his filter turning into panicked gasps. Quickly he threw himself back into the Cyclone. He reached for the controls and restarted the engine. He had to go back. To the colony. To his family — and raced off. Yet even as he drove, he heard them — the explosions above him. The breaking of the atmosphere.

The radio erupted with panicked voices — a chorus of fear and despair.

“We see them! In the sky! There are too many—!”

Then everything cut out. Only a deafening ringing remained. A light flared — bright and blinding. The impact followed seconds later. A blazing fireball struck the ground not far ahead, making the very air shudder as a shockwave rushed toward him like an invisible fist. Sand and dust rose in a devouring wall. The Cyclone lifted off the ground, tossed around like a toy as small rocks and metal fragments hammered against it.

One of the debris chunks slammed into the side of the vehicle, shredding the outer plating and hurling him across the dunes. Sparks erupted, the onboard computer screeched, the smell of burned fuel filled the air. Benedikt clung to the steering wheel with all he had, feeling the vibrations in his bones. But darkness swallowed him shortly after. When the world fell silent, only the distant echo of thunder rolling across the desert remained — like the last heartbeat of a dying sky.

When he awoke, there was first an irritating tone. Then came pain. Dull. Heavy. Burning. He lay on his side, half-buried in the hot sand. His visor had cracked, fine fractures spreading like spider legs across the glass. The rest of his helmet was smeared with dust and blood. He gasped for air — the sharp, dry hiss of his suit was the only thing breaking the silence.

Slowly he pushed himself up. Every muscle protested. His ribs ached, and his right arm felt numb. He shook his head to clear the dizziness, but the pounding in his skull remained. Above him, the night sky was streaked with burning wrecks scattered across the desert — silent witnesses of a brutal and merciless assault.

He turned around slowly. Behind him lay the Cyclone — or what was left of it — the cabin half-buried, the front torn apart as if a giant had ripped it open with its bare hands. Benedikt stumbled toward it, each step heavier than the last.

The oxygen alarm blinked red in the lower corner of his display — O₂: 18%. He felt the air thinning in his suit, each breath shorter than the last. The voice of his life-support system became a mocking ticking sound accompanying him as he dragged himself forward.

When he reached the Cyclone, he fell to his knees. His hands trembled as he pushed aside the torn plating. Inside: molten controls, smoke, sparks. The radio lay half-melted among the rubble. He grabbed it, pressed the transmission switch.

“…This is… Verril… Colony Asturia… can anyone hear me?”

Static. Only static. He switched frequencies. Again. And again.

“To all stations… UEE, mining control, Asturia… please, anyone on this frequency?”

The radio replied with the same hissing whisper. Dead. Like everything else. He sank back, collapsing into the sand. His breath fogged the visor. Sweat dripped down his forehead, burning in his eyes. The oxygen dropped further — O₂: 15%.

He looked west — toward where the colony should be. But between him and the colony there was nothing but dunes, shimmering air, and pillars of smoke in the distance. No sign of life. No sky full of ships. No signal. No hope. His only chance to survive was to reach the colony and call for help there. But first he had to patch his suit. He found four OxyPens near the wreckage — whether they would be enough was doubtful.

He trudged forward, step by step, feet sinking deep into the sand. Each breath cost strength, each thought screamed for water, for air. Two days. Two days in which the sand swallowed his trail and the sun laughed above him. His lips cracked, the skin beneath his suit rubbed raw, his eyes heavy from thirst and the need to conserve oxygen. Sometimes he thought he heard voices — transmissions, his wife’s laughter, his daughter’s call. But it was only the echo of a mind slowly dissolving into nothing.

All around him the fire still glowed beneath the ash — slow, quiet, stubborn. The air was heavy, dense, suffocating — filled with the sweet-metallic scent of burned flesh, molten copper, and detonated quantanium. Yet the traces revealed one thing clearly… the Vanduul had come. Not a single stone remained standing. Buildings and mining rigs stood like melted skeletons in the ash. They had first destroyed the freighters and supply ships in orbit with surgical precision. Then they descended, like scavengers upon an open wound. They deployed ground troops and killed the fleeing. Even those who sought refuge in the mine shafts were hunted until the darkness swallowed them. The Vanduul were swift and precise. They landed near crashed ships, dismantled them, and took anything they deemed useful.

But the Vanduul were not the only evil. On the second day, before nightfall, they came — humans. Looters.

Their vehicles dragged through the sand, loaded with stolen generators, copper, tools. They laughed. Laughed as they pulled the dead from the houses, rummaged through their pockets, tore off jewelry. One kicked aside the charred body of a man just to steal the medallion around his neck. Benedikt lay hidden in the shadow of a destroyed container, his body trembling with rage and hunger. He hardly dared to breathe. His heart pounded so loudly he feared they might hear it. For hours he watched them strip the last remnants of life from the ruins — and when they finally left, only silence remained.

Then he saw them. Among the ruins of his home.

His wife and his daughter…

Side by side. Burned, clinging to each other, as if they had held on in their final moment. His world collapsed inside him — quietly, without scream, without tears. Only a single sound escaped him — a deep, guttural tremor, somewhere between agony and madness. He knelt in the dust, pressed his forehead to the ground until his skin tore. The sky above him grew as dark as his thoughts, and the sand beneath him soaked with the blood of his family.

He remained there for four days. Four days among smoke, dust, and the ghosts of those he had lost. He drank from broken coolant lines, ate whatever he found. Until one morning a shadow fell over him. But this time it was a transport ship. A freighter that was supposed to load copper. But all it found was a lone survivor.

Benedikt Verril — the last witness of the colony Asturia on Tiber II.

2945 – The Screams from Beyond

As Tiber II turned to ash, the Senate — gleaming in the heart of humanity — shone like a sterile temple of glass and gold. Sunlight broke across the domes of the capital, reflecting off flawless facades while beyond those walls, entire worlds burned. In its halls echoed the quiet murmur of power. Uniformed men and women in immaculate suits debated trade routes, tax quotas, and diplomatic phrasing as holographic star maps hovered above their heads — beautiful, clinical, sterile.

“A local incident,” someone said with a smile that was far too perfect. “A regrettable loss.”

A swipe of a hand — and Tiber II was erased. One less colony. One more statistic. A number in a column no one read.

The reports said nothing of the sand that burned. Nothing of the eradicated company or the brutal attack that left only a single colonist alive. Only numbers, lines, protocols. And out there, far beyond the comfort zone, lay the real universe — a cold, endless grave where the stars no longer offered even the warmth of hope.

UEE patrols withdrew. Commanders received orders that sounded like “restructuring,” but truly meant “retreat.” Tiber II, the internal memos claimed, held no strategic value. No profit. No reason to waste resources. Thus a world fell into oblivion, and with it the souls who had lived there. The same fate that once befell Orion, Virgil, and Caliban.

But the man rescued from the desert was no longer the one who had vanished into it. His gaze was empty — not only from grief, but from disappointment. From an understanding that had come far too late: neither the system nor the politics protects anyone unless it serves their own interest and fits neatly into a cold “cost-benefit” equation.

He enlisted in the UEE Navy, driven by a rage even death could not extinguish. Vengeance was not a word to him — it was his breath. Even in his first months, he stood out: disciplined, intelligent, ice-cold. An officer who followed orders, yet often appeared unpredictable. The men under his command followed him because he did what needed to be done — not what looked good in reports. But the higher he rose, the deeper his faith fell.

He saw decisions made not in the field, but in committees. He saw heroes sacrificed because their deaths were cheaper than their rescue. He saw entire systems burning while politicians debated “jurisdictional responsibilities.”

The war against the Vanduul was not lost — it was betrayed.
And somewhere between the stars, between the cold chains of command and the even colder silence of bureaucracy, Benedict Verril lost what remained of his belief. Not in humanity, but in those who claimed to lead it.

Vega II – A Battle That Opened the Eyes

A year had passed. A year since Tiber fell silent, since the sand swallowed the last whispers of its dead. And then came Vega II. But this time, no one could look away.

Billions of eyes fixed upon the screens — in bars, on space stations, in the cold corridors of megacities. Families held hands, soldiers stood motionless before holo-projectors, children clung to their parents. And together they watched the sky over Vega II break apart.

The UEE fleets assembled, glittering titans of steel floating in orbit like sleeping gods. But against the shadows rising from the nebula, they stood before an uncertain future. At first, it was only a spark. A glowing speck in the void. Then another. And another. Until the sky itself began to burn.

They saw carriers ripped open by massive explosions — like wounded beasts collapsing in on themselves. They saw fighters turn to dust before their pilots could even realize they were already dead. The cameras froze the images — for seconds at a time, as if the universe itself held its breath.

Then came the rain. Debris, burning, glowing, plummeted from orbit. Entire cities lit up like candles in the darkness — and vanished. People ran through streets of fire. Windows shattered. Sirens screamed as if trying to drown out the sky. Children stumbled over rubble, crying for parents already reduced to ash. A girl holding a teddy bear looked back one last time — just before the light consumed her.

The broadcasts flickered. The final frame showed the silhouette of a burning planet — and the echo of a voice, distorted by smoke and static:

“They’re everywhere…”

Then silence.

And in that silence, humanity understood: the quiet of the stars was no accident. It was a verdict. A judgment on their arrogance, their complacency, their belief that they were safe — at the heart of their empire, behind walls of bureaucracy and blindness.

And as the last transmitter died, the sky wept fire once more.

October 2945 – The Turning Point

The Senate on Terra trembled beneath the weight of unspoken fear. Dozens of holograms flickered over the polished marble floor, the faces of the representatives reflected in cold light. Those who usually argued over taxes, trade routes, and diplomatic protocols now barely dared breathe. For today, Admiral Bishop spoke — the man who had seen the downfall with his own eyes.

He stood there, in the center of the vast hall, shoulders heavy with the burden of a war no one had wanted to confront. The silence was unbearable as he reached the crucial sentence of his address.

“… we are at war …”

His voice thundered through the hall. No pathos, no empty rhetoric — only the cold, cutting truth. A murmur swept through the rows. Some turned away, others shook their heads in disbelief. Politicians whispered of “exaggeration,” of “strategic rhetoric.” But the soldiers present — they knew. They had seen the look in Bishop’s eyes: the look of a man who had faced this terrible enemy and nearly paid for it with his life.

He spoke of Tiber, of Vega, of the flames that devoured the horizons of distant worlds. Of men who fought to their last breath, of children whose screams died in the vacuum of space. His words painted images that burned themselves into every mind.

2946–2950 – Hope

While Terra debated, the colonies fought for nothing less than their survival.

In the occupied systems, the skies glowed with the engines of the Vanduul. Their ships crawled through the orbits like shadows — silent, unstoppable. More colonies were wiped out, communication networks destroyed, freighters swallowed whole. Yet even in the deepest darkness, a spark of resistance remained.

Some colonies, shattered and cut off from the outside world, began to secretly rearm. Workshops that once built mining tools now produced munitions. Shipwrecks were dismantled, power cells rebuilt, old communication relays secretly reactivated.

Some sent signals — distress calls, pleas for help, desperation encoded in digital form. Others remained silent and waited. They waited for reinforcements, for any sign that the UEE had not forgotten them. But space stayed silent. With each passing month, hope grew weaker; with each year, it died a little more.

Children born in this era knew no sunlight, only the dim flicker of emergency generators. Men and women no longer fought for glory or duty — only to survive the night.

Between 2946 and 2950, the term “humanity” became something different. For these colonists, it no longer meant civilization. It meant survival. And somewhere beyond the ruins, a haunted officer remembered the words of an admiral in the Senate — and wondered if the war he had proclaimed could still be won.

2950–2955 – Fall and Rise

Benedict Verril got his revenge — but not in the form he had once dreamed of. He had hoped to see the Vanduul burn, hoped that every lost life on Tiber II would find retribution. But what he received instead was bureaucracy, sluggishness, and senseless orders.

The processes were slow, suffocating like oil trickling through a dead engine. The colonies he fought for — those for whom he had lost friends and family — seemed to the UEE nothing more than a footnote. While blood spilled at the borders, senators debated diplomatic formalities.

His unit was repeatedly assigned to absurd missions — patrols in secure sectors, escorting merchants, political protection duties.

“This is not what soldiers stand for,” he once said as he stared into the stars. “We’re supposed to protect lives. Instead, we’re guarding contracts.”

With each year, the anger within him grew — a fire that could no longer be extinguished. He saw the system he served collapsing under its own weight.

Too many speeches, too few actions. Too many giving orders, too few taking responsibility. And so he made his decision. He removed the UEE insignia from his uniform, left rank and honor behind. He took with him those men and women who still believed in something — in courage, in duty, in protecting those who had been forgotten.

Together they traveled through the burned systems. Year after year, they sought out the survivors of the frontier colonies. In old mining stations, hidden outposts, and decaying spaceports they found people who, just like them, had lost hope — and were ready to reclaim it.

Out of the scattered came a unit.
Out of a unit came a force.
And out of that force arose an idea.

But Verril knew that military strength alone would not be enough. One could win battles, but not if one starved. One could fight, but not endure without a home or an operational base.

They needed food, training, progress, research, and infrastructure. They needed a symbol — something greater than themselves.

And so the vision was born. Not out of ambition alone, but out of necessity. Deep within enemy territory, inside a broken system, something new was meant to rise: a realm founded not on political speeches, but on unity, duty, loyalty, discipline, and a responsible, strong community.

An empire forged through sacrifice.
An empire that did not negotiate — but acted.
An empire that would bear a name the galaxy would still whisper long after all else had turned to dust:

The United Colonial Empire