Barzea and Apocalypse

The megastructure was truly worthy of that title. It was the most massive artificial construction I have ever seen. With our current technology, it would take all the Erdellian Empire at least two hundred years to complete it. No doubt that these so-called Forerunners had accomplished this feat in but a fortnight. It was gigantic, dwarfing either of the two Forerunner rings we had previously discovered. Admittedly, it was humbling.
Within approximately half a zymar, our vessel was scanned by Forerunner constructs. We apparently were approved for approach. Before us materialized a structure, brightly lit, which had the appearance of docking nets. The ship’s helmsman looked over his shoulder and to me with a certain apprehension.
“Proceed,” I commanded.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” replied the helmsman.
Our ship approached what appeared to be a large docking bay. That the flagship of the Cosmic Navy, the Unstoppable, could fit with room to spare for five more ships of similar size, spoke much to the advances of this long-dead race. Once the ship was anchored in, I, accompanied by a squad of Twilight Knights and a team of xenoarchaeologists, disembarked the Unstoppable and stepped foot onto the structure.
At this time we were greeted by a machine. It floated towards us, staring at us with some sort of yellow-tinted ocular device that dominated its whole body. It was approximately the size of the head of an average Erdellian.
“Greetings! I am 994 Luminous Apocalypse. I am the monitor of Maethrillian.”
“How do you know our language?” I asked.
“Ah, I must apologize,” answered Apocalypse. “When you were scanned, my protocols dictated that I examine your ship’s logs for any pertinent information on your methods of communication. It did not take me too long to have an understanding of your language.” Now, the time between when we were first scanned to when we disembarked the ship was less than half an hour.
“I see,” I said. “What is Maethrillian?”
“Ah, Maethrillian!” excitedly replied Apocalypse. “Come, follow me, I must show you!”
And so, the intelligence floated along, and we followed it through various moderately-lit passageways. The Knights were wary, their fingers not far from their weapons’ triggers. The xenoarchaeologists were quite energetic, whispering to themselves in hushed tones as they took note of every aeta of the structure. Then, we came to an open-air plaza, well-lit, with a view of the rod forming the center of the structure, from which numerous massive metallic discs rotated. We were on such a disc, the middle one. Gasps of awe flowed from the mouths of the scientists.
“What a wondrous sight,” said one Knight.
“Maethrillian! This megastructure, one of the grandest ever constructed in the galaxy, served as the capital of the Forerunner ecumene for most of its existence.”
“What is your function here?” I asked.
“My primary function is to inform visitors to Maethrillian of Forerunner knowledge and history, and to maintain access to said knowledge for future generations of sentient life. My secondary function is to supervise the defense of Maethrillian in any event of hostile incursion. My tertiary function is to maintain the basic functions of Maethrillian, most notably life support, power systems, and access to unrestricted consoles.”
“I have some rudimentary knowledge of the Forerunners,” I commented, “but I would like to know more about them. For example, what guiding philosophies did they live by?”
“Well, Forerunner civilization in general was centered on a concept called the Mantle of Responsibility, often colloquially known simply as ‘the Mantle.’ The Mantle originated in a predecessor species, the Precursors, which the Forerunners succeeded as the most advances forms of life in the galaxy. It dictates that the most advances sentient species in the galaxy should have stewardship over all other life within its domain. The Mantle was central to the Forerunners, and everything, from governance and administration, to science and technology, and even to the lifestyles of individual Forerunners, revolved around it.”
“What happened to the Forerunners?”
“Ah, the fall of the Forerunners. It is a tragic and exceedingly violent tale, and to this day, a certain sorrow fills me whenever I recount it. I shall tell you as we journey towards the Council Amphitheater, where the governing body of the Forerunners, the Ecumene Council, would convene.”
A structure quietly floated towards the plaza where we were, and stopped at what appeared to be a docking platform. We followed Apocalypse onto it, and it carried us towards the central rod with a low hum. If I was not mistaken, a brief pensive silence overtook the AI as it stared towards the rod, which was gradually becoming larger the more we approached.
“There was a war,” it said in a melancholic tone. “A war between the Forerunners and the Flood.”
“The Flood… I have heard of that term before. On one of the Halo arrays.”
Apocalypse quickly turned to me. “You have discovered one of the arrays?”
“Two, actually. Inhabited by monitors such as yourself. They were not so forthcoming with information, and instead only obsessed with Flood containment protocol. We assist them whenever necessary in this endeavor.”
“Then surely you understand some of what had occurred.”
“Our knowledge is fragmentary. We know that the Halo arrays are superweapons to be used against the Flood, but beyond that, we are bereft of knowledge.”
“The Halo arrays are… were measures of last resort. They use destructive pulses of energy to destroy every sentient life-form within a 50,000 light-year radius. To my knowledge, seven installations survived to be activated at the end of the war against the Flood. All unshielded sentient life in the Sky-Gate was killed, and the parasitic Flood, robbed of their food source and means of reproduction, starved to death. Samples of the Flood were retrieved for future study and housed on the Halo arrays, and there they remain to this day. Meanwhile, the Forerunners were severely depleted in number in the centuries-long conflict. It is my personal belief, and statistical probability, that they are currently extinct as a species. I have not seen a Forerunner in the many cycles since, although other alien species visit Maethrillian from time to time. Most are lone explorers who went astray in their navigations, while a few are exploratory parties. They all invariably attempt to gain technological insights from this city, but are disappointed as their capabilities to reverse-engineer Forerunner technology are quite limited.”
“Where did the Flood originate from?”
“According to themselves, they were the corruption of the Precursors. They alleged that the Forerunners attacked the Precursors on a campaign of genocide for reasons that still elude me, and that the Flood was their act of vengeance on the Forerunners.”
We docked at a platform, and Apocalypse floated onwards, into a massive amphitheater-like area. A bridge made of light was summoned before us, and we walked across it, following the AI to the central platform. The xenoarchaeologists whispered in awe, while the Knights were kept on alert. They did not relish being in the center of a circular room, devoid of any cover.
“Here is where debates would be held, with the speakers standing on this platform, putting forth their arguments and defending against counterarguments. Oh, how I wish for those days to return, to when my makers would walk these halls once more, to hold lively debates – “
“To lord over others based off of some comfy euphemism for ‘empire,’” I suddenly uttered.
Apocalypse stopped. He stared at me for several tense moments. “I am sorry?”
“The ‘Mantle of Responsibility.’ Tell me… was the Forerunners’ usurpation of the Mantle from the Precursors a peaceful transfer of power?”
The AI was silent for some time. “…No. Records from that distant in the past are fragmentary at best, but they are all universal on one account: the Forerunners waged war on the Precursors.”
“And achieved victory.”
“And achieved victory… for a time.”
“And if a species disagreed with the Mantle? If… they defied it?”
“The Forerunners held the Mantle of Responsibility with an utterly sacrosanct reverence. To reject the Mantle would be to reject everything they believed.”
“Everything they believed. They would wage war against the transgressor?”
“They would. And they did. I fail to see the merits in this line of questioning.”
“Power, Luminous Apocalypse. Power is strength. And what is strength if it is unused? In the Forerunners’ hubris and decadence, they crushed any dissent, any questioning thought, any whisper of doubt in their possession of the Mantle of Responsibility. Until the Flood came to sweep them aside. Until the Flood washed away the Mantle, casting it out of their hands like some wooden bowl. The most advanced should rule over others? Why should we even follow the philosophies of a dead race?”
“The Mantle of Responsibility safeguards all life, across the ecumene.”
“And the actions of the Forerunners have done what to life? They have toyed with it, played with it, oppressed it, and in that oppression appeared the Flood. And like its namesake, it washed away species after species, drowning planet after planet, until the Forerunners were brought to their knees. Then came the Halos. And the annihilation of life. Does that not abrogate the Mantle in its totality? When your makers professed to protect and guide and nurture life, only to vaporize it everywhere with but a word?”
“I admit, the Forerunners’ actions caused them to forfeit their possession of the Mantle. But now this means that newer species may obtain it. Such as yours.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why should we adopt the philosophies of a dead race, as I asked before? After all, your Forerunners are now dust in the wind. They are not here. What gives them the right to dictate to us what we should or should not do?”
“They saved your species.”
When he spoke those words, I could not believe it. I did not want to believe it. “What?”
“The Forerunners saved your species from the Flood, on one of many shield worlds. It is most fortuitous that you have almost returned to your pre-Flood technological level.”
“..Returned?”
Apocalypse fell silent once more.
“Explain,” I said with a firm voice. “What were we like before?”
“You were a vassal species, arranged in a constitutional monarchy not too dissimilar from your current political situation, according to your ship’s logs. Your species inhabited eleven separate star systems, numbering approximately eighty billion individuals when the Flood first appeared. When you were rescued, there were barely than a million of you left.”
I walked towards the precipice of the central platform, and stared back into the disc from whence we came.
“I will not adopt the Mantle that had arrested the destiny of my people. I will not accept the greatness of your makers, who forced my species to walk down a path of their own construction, a path that led to our near-extinction.”
“So, what is your Mantle, then?”
I turned back to him. “My Mantle?”
“Yes, your Mantle. Is it Dark-Light?”
I raised my chin and eyebrow, intrigued that he was astute enough to gleam from our logs our religious beliefs.
“The Mantle is my Dark-Light. Your Dark-Light, perhaps, is your Mantle. And living by the way of the Dark-Light, you have expanded your species across numerous star systems, building an Empire to rival those of your ancestors. Or perhaps is it your philosophy of power? Is that your Mantle? The Mantle of Might Makes Right? Of Peace Through War?”
I paused, and softened my stance from open hostility to one more of quiet contemplation, with a tinge of regret. “From what you have told me, the Forerunners would occasionally adhere to that doctrine to maintain their power. Their control. Their empire.”
“That has happened, yes,” admitted Apocalypse.
“Indeed. They would understand, I believe. They would understand that strength is the only universal language.”
“I am not so sure I would agree with that. Strength is like a raging fire. If it is not contained and tempered, it will set everything alight and burn all to the ground. Cannot peace be a universal language? Cannot understanding, unity, life itself, be a universal language?”
“Until one meets another who does not believe that.”
“Perhaps. But that day is long in the making, and for the Forerunners, they would not relish in the thought of using force for compliance.”
“But it had been done before.”
“Yes, but that did not make force an option of first resort. What of you? Have you shot first, and asked questions later, so to speak?”
I fell silent, which by all accounts was an admission.
“Indeed,” continued Apocalypse.
“What I have done, I have done to safeguard the existence of my species. Of All-Erdellia. Every Erdellian man, woman, and child that breathes life today does so because of the Empire we have built, through peace and war, through strength and hope, through hardship and prosperity. In a universe where no species is bound to any code except their own.”
“But that is the very purpose of the Mantle.”
“What good is it if it is forgotten? I have not even heard of the Mantle until today, until you told me. And you want me to accept it as if it is the Dark-Light itself descending from the Twilight Dimension to grant me benedictions and new Pacts and Testaments? And what good is the Mantle if it has been so grievously perverted, so perfidiously misused, and so utterly failed?”
“It has not been ideally followed, I must confess, but that does not mean it is a bad idea.”
“I am wary of any idea, good or bad, that is most poorly executed. My people must be able to forge their own destiny.”
“And what of those species who you bring into your Empire at the emission-point of your energy weapons? What of them? Of their destiny?”
“Our prevailing over them through force of arms forfeits their destiny in favor of ours.”
“That only leads to more destruction. More conflict. More suffering. Halos on a smaller, but nevertheless equally-tragic, scale.”
“I cannot allow the probability that my species will be thrown into the dustbin of history, that it will be wiped from the face of the Universe, by adopting the Mantle that has already brought ruin to one great race, and to countless others through its misguided implementation and ultimate abrogation.”
“Through the machine of war that you utilize, the probability of exactly that occurring is relatively high.”
“But I am not going to allow my species to accept death with open arms, to turn the other cheek as extinction hurtles towards them.”
“And this is what the Mantle prevents!” Now, at this time, Apocalypse actually raised his voice at me. “The Mantle safeguards all life everywhere!” Yours, others, mine, even! All under the guidance, the stewardship of the ones most qualified, most advanced, most capable!”
“It is Empire! It is the specter of Empire, cloaked in poetic wording. It is life by submission to power, to authority. Yes, the authority of those highly qualified, highly advanced, but it is still one bending a knee to another. I will not have my people be vassalized by another. They shall be free to follow their own path.”
“Under… you? Under the great Barzea, the founder of the Erdellian… Empire.”
“At least we do not hide away our truths, at least we are not ashamed of who we are. We… are the Erdellian Empire. We are the makers of our own fates, the masters of our own destiny. Whether it be through peace or war, we will not have our fates dictated by others. Our Empire will never bow to another… again.”
I looked around and once again recognized the grandeur of where I stood. I remembered where I was. Maethrillian. The capital of the Forerunners. This was all artificial, constructed, and yet, it was bigger than most gas giants in the Erdellian Empire. Our Navy’s flagship fit in a single hangar in this structure with room to spare. The structure itself was tens of thousands of years old, yet not an aeta of it had rusted or shown wear. Apocalypse was at least as old, and his… its… his mind was as sharp as my own. My xenoarchaeologists were awestruck and humbled, as was I. The Knights that had accompanied me have done so for decades, and I have never seen them as nervous and alert as now. I myself felt this small only when I was but a child.
I let out a deep sigh, and considerably softened my demeanor. “I apologize for my outbursts. Despite what I have said, the facts remain: I stand upon the shoulders of giants. May my scientists study this structure and the information therein?”
“Of course, they are free to access all unrestricted information via the terminals. They may also approach me for the same reasons.”
“And may we speak, you and I, from time to time?”
Apocalypse paused. He lowered himself to my eye level. “Yes. I have not had an opportunity to talk with another organic being for a very, very, very long time. I would like this, Emperor.”
“You may call me ‘Barzea.’” I may have been mistaken, but Apocalypse’s eye appeared to brighten.
Category:The Weekly