In the early days of a universe called Universum Originalis, a civilization
formed in a galaxy called Vertea. It wasn’t just a galaxy, but the entirety
of the cosmos, according to its inhabitants. A bizarre phenomenon known as
The Verge forced all interstellar travel to first converge in the center of
what, again, the people thought must be the center of the universe as a
whole. From there, they could travel outwards to where they wanted, but they
weren’t able to move laterally. And they weren’t able to move beyond the
galaxy, because they weren’t even able to detect that other galaxies existed
at all. Once they did progress enough to figure this out, some of them
decided to explore. They built ships that were bigger and more impressive
than anything they ever had before, and they went out in search of new
cultures. While these ships could reach incredible speeds, they still took
time, and they figured that not everyone would be so patient. If it took
them a hundred years to finally find some alien friends, it would take a
hundred years to get back. They decided to construct something known as the
Nexus Network. Machines were placed on key planets, which would allow near
instantaneous travel between the stars, and even between galaxies. They
could automate these network builders to go all over the place, so if one of
them ever did encounter intelligent lifeforms, anyone could get to them in a
matter of seconds, or maybe minutes. Well, they didn’t find anyone. They
didn’t realize how few and far between civilizations were. Natural branes
are designed to support life in one galaxy at a time, and most likely
crumble by the time a new one rises billions of years later. Fortunately,
this was just the one universe, and there were infinite places to go once
they came up with sufficiently advanced technology.
By the time they came to understand how rare life was, the small group of
scientists and their friends had figured out how to travel between
universes. At this point, they themselves were billions of years old, so
actually interacting with these others didn’t seem as interesting as it once
did. They began to feel like the wisest people in all of reality, and while
they weren’t pretentious about it, they didn’t think it was a good idea to
interfere with the children too directly. That didn’t mean they didn’t want
to help. They could remember being so disappointed about how alone they were
in their home universe. They figured that the best way to help was to create
connections, so no one else would experience the same feelings of isolation.
They built more Nexus networks. They didn’t build them in every universe
that they encountered, and not only because the proper physics in some
didn’t support the technology, but because they didn’t all need such a
thing. Sapioplantaverse needed a network, but only one that reached
throughout their home galaxy. They were ecstatic when they discovered the
Nexus on their planet, which was deliberately hidden to avoid
extremely primitive species from being sociologically harmed by the
technology. The artificial intelligence that runs each Nexus is just that;
it’s intelligent. The engineers who built the system programmed it to assess
someone’s technological status, to decide what they’re allowed to do with
the machine, and what they’re not ready for. Some are allowed to go to any
world they want, while others can only go to one. Some immediately have
access to advanced features, like evacuation mode, while others have to earn
that right, if they ever do. The intelligent plant-based were given easy
access to the control room of the machine, but weren’t able to do anything
right away. This forced them to study what they had uncovered, and figure
things out on their own. It took them years, but once they did, they sent an
exploration team to the only other planet seen to have a Nexus of their own.
It was this universe’s version of Earth, and from here, an alliance formed.
Because what they discovered was that they weren’t the only two cultures in
the Milky Way. The Ochivari chose this brane to reconsider their options.
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