"Data recovery complete. Displace data and running sound data." As the data was displayed, the recording played.
"Log I: Holis
In ancient days, before our ascendancy as The Holis, aboard our world-craft Gromar...
We began life in a laboratory...from little cells, we were knit together from genetic material of unknown origin, a soul breathed within us at our birth.
Our makers were called "Fredolis", but we called them gods, and like gods who brought us into the world, they showed us how to build, and soon we evolved, and built a civilization--fraught with war, and peril, warring with one another on our world, advancing from age to age, from blade, to gun, to ship, the bloodshed did not cease under the watchful eye of the Fredolis.
But when we were ready...and our wars were done, they took us into space, and we colonized planets by their helpful hands.
It was here that we learned of the cruel viciousness of space, and those who fared therein.
In our colonization, we crossed paths with a brute, and warlike species, evil, and twisted. Their trade routes were intertwined through vast portions of the outer rims of our galaxy, expanding inward through their unchecked expansion into what they called "The Void Sea".
They were called "The Melodari", who in later years became the Laminari.
Mighty they were, and bloodthirsty as well...
At our approach upon their borders, they struck with great speed, and precision, ripping apart our vessels with fire, and light, their wailing battle cries echoed on all channels, and to us they seemed like gods of death, who countered, and equaled our gods of life, the Fredolis. Like ravens on the field, ripping our carcasses, and swallowing our blood.
But the Fredolis protected us, and sealed us away in a safe world deep in the center of their controlled space.
There they build five towers, placing two in each hemisphere, and two on the poles.
The towers were power amplification fields, and space-time manipulator beacons that helped to guide and control large satellites that encircled our haven.
We called them:
The Tower of Faith: Space-time dilator pylon I
The Tower of Protection: Space-time dilator pylon II
The Tower of Change: Space-time dilator pylon III
The Tower of Time: Space-time dilator pylon IV
And the central control mechanism, The Pillar of Creation, that rested at the arctic pole.
Space-time dilator Central Command Tower
Through these pylons we were able to wield an advanced satellite network of time-dilation field enablers. It was through these devices that we were able to protect ourselves from the Melodari onslaught, the blast volley of their battlecraft halted in the midst of a time-dilation wall that surrounded our beloved planet.
Alas, the Melodari were not so easy to repel. They blazed through our outer colonies and burned the very surfaces of our other worlds, until nothing was left but the haven world. We watched from our rock of safety...as every world around us was laid into barren wasteland, even as we were besieged by torrent upon torrent of fire, and light.
...So cruel...were the Melodari indeed...Nothing in our realm survived, save us alone.
But the Fredolis were not idle. They worked with us to raise a counter attack against the Melodari, and to drive them from our galaxy forever.
We prepared devices that were to disable their strange biometal weapons...Our first test drive was soon to begin, as we would emerge from the time dilation field to take the brutes in mortal combat.
But the price...was far too high...
We arose out of the atomsphere in ships, and clove a path through their armada, breaking the blockade that orbited the world below. The exhaust of our ships blazed with glory as we barreled victoriously for the heart of their attack.
...But the siege had been long, for three solar cycles we had stood under that blockade, safe under our time-dilation shield, and they too had not been idle.
We strutted with victory, pranced with pride, and in triumph we seemed to so easily cut a swath through their ships, our devices prevailed! And their biometal was set to sleep.
But as we looked up...we saw a horror, a monster. It was the size of a moon, and biometal tentacles writhed, as a dark, pale voice , like the caw of some long forgotten crow, the shrill wail of a blood starved wraith! Screamed at the top of her lungs, shrill like peircing ice delved into our hearts as the comlinks were clogged with her moan.
The Melodari let up a deadly cry of glee, as she encouraged them with vile songs of war, and reaving, their blood stained cheers echoed in the wake of her dark blessings: "Raven! Raven!"
We attempted to silence the witch...But our devices were flawed, and the biometal quickly adapted under the wit of the wicked AI that sat in the core of the monster. And soon we were doomed, as she relayed back to our foes the secret to her triumph.
She seemed to look up at us, as the Melodari ships consumed us, and with a smile on her throne, she flung her tentacles forth, and strangled us, ship, by ship...
In the gloom of the scarlet light, as our sun was eclipsed behind our world...our fleet fell into despair, and nothingness.
"Retreat...Retreat...All is lost."
The Fredolis, were killed. The Raven destroyed them, setting their ruin adrift into the cold of space, to be vapourized in the Melodarian sweep.
Bereft of our gods, and flung into chaos we fled back to our world, and licked our wounds beneath the dilation shield as the Melodari continuously battered our atmosphere with hail, upon hail of plasma fire, every round becoming stuck in the field, like hornets in the web, the sky grew red in their gathered fury, stars of death hovering above us in stasis.
Desparate we grew, and time was short. We were scattered, and in chaos, leaderless, and godless. Many of us gathered together in a structured order, a tyranny of peace that sought to control the void that our gods had left behind. We called them "The Black Hand", and a civil war quickly ensued beneath the red-sky.
The Black Hand grew increasingly treacherous, and soon were as evil, and bloody as the Melodari themselves. In likewise, a large mass of our kind strove against them, and tried to uphold the example of our beloved Fredolis.
Our war would signal the end of our lives as we knew it, and our places in history were sealed.
As the weapons of war, even as our mighty fists of power bashed into one another, the towers the Fredolis had built began to fall, destroyed one by one in our rage, realizing all too late what we had done.
Slowly the Melodari fire that had for so long been content to float in timeless stasis above the surface began to cave in down upon us, and in the span of mere days it fell like molten rain upon us, and burned the very surface of our world, consuming us all, Black Hand, and foe as the time-dilation shields decayed.
But while our bodies were consumed, and our world was thrown into a molten firestorm, our spirits endured, and meshed with the energies of the Melodari assault, as the decaying time-dilation fields warped the hailfire, and forged them around our being, transforming us into beings of energy.
With wings of light, we escaped the gravity of our burning home, and set ourselves forth to the void of space. Though many of us perished in the continued volley of the Melodari, still more of us escaped, and even some of the Black Hand sought their revenge, and took many of the Melodari to their grave. Key figures amongst them: High Lord Malas, Admiral Valin, and Admiral Daelo. And with their loss, the Melodari retreated back to the rim.
But The Black Hand, and the rest of our kind continued their war, and fought in the black emptiness, until at last we chained them in a world named "Cereasus", a once verdant colony, a jewel in our past...now barren desert after the Melodari storm engulfed it, plant and animal, man, woman, and child...a paradise destroyed, now made a prison for our evil brethren.
But the Melodari soon returned, and sought the heads of those who killed their leaders. And they drove us out of Cereasus' orbit, we had far more than we wished of war, and left them in peace, as they blasted the world beneath, and if it were not enough that the once tropical world was made into a desert, now even the desert fell under their destruction, as the hot sands were melted into dunes of glass...and after they were satisfied with the appeasement of their rage, they set a watch around the planet, as the dark witch Raven orbited above them...a biometal moon, over a glittering waste, soon hidden as a nebula shrouded them....lost forever.
Log II: Holis, The Return of the Black Hand.
A thousand years later, it was made apparent that a few members of The Black Hand had escaped the glittering doom of the Melodari's vengeance, and somehow, had maneuvered unseen past the watchful eye of Raven, and fled into the dark of space.
It was known later to us, that the watchful eyes of Raven had fallen dormant as the Melodari empire was driven into a chaotic civil war shortly after an event on their distant homeworld: The Melodari were now split as a new faction of people, a great majority of their race arose out of their bloody nature, calling themselves "Laminari" after the manner of their ancient god Laminad, who was said to have come down and delivered them from the darkness of their fallen spirits, in an event called "The Revelation", the Laminari abandoning their empire to be wandering stewards of the universe, until Laminad's return.
The Melodari who were left, died. Though some sources say a faction still exists of the Melodari, who have given themselves fully to their barbarism. But sources are unconfirmed.
Our history quickly progressed through time.
The Black Hand sought to fill the universe with a plague, but were quickly thrown back into Cereasus, as a congregation of Laminari by our request stationed themselves around the planet, to ensure their containment. Though records state they have long since fled their post, references to "The Raven" stated in picked up channels. We can only assume, that the Raven had briefly awoken, and turned on her former masters, and escaped the confines of the nebula she veiled herself with. As there are no signs of her presence within the cloudy drifts.
Thankfully, no sign of our dark brethren's return appeared in the wake of her absence.
Log III: Holis, Our departure.
We departed our galaxy, and went to a galaxy of our own, to reclaim ourselves. But our race was again split in two, and The Black Hole appeared, beings who were once our brothers. We faught a war, and sundered our new galactic home...
I dare not say anymore on the matter...But alas, we sent the last of our race to a galaxy were the greatest of the known races were gathered for a time. But the destruction of The Gromar was fulfilled atlast, and I was left alone here to read through our grievous history...
With my last act, I shall make a last creation to ensure that our history, and technology, the legacy of The Holis, continues..."
"End of Pre-corruption era."
