Forefather Civilization

Sigil most commonly attributed to the Forefathers, found in most xenoarchaeological structures

## Historical information

### Date dissolved

~65 million years ago

The **Forefathers** (Latin: *Obscuris artifex*, lit. "Obscure architects") are an ambiguous alien precursor civilization that existed approximately sixty five million years prior to humanity's ascent to the stars under the *Tomorrow Initiative.* Even after over half a millennium of rigorous xenoarchaeological research across hundreds of star systems and worlds hosting the ruins of the Forefathers, little is still known about them other than the fact that their empire spanned at least as much of a space as the current Coalition of Congressional Republics, if not larger.

However, a key note about the Forefather Civilization is that the member species displayed a degree of bilateral symmetry and subsequent bipedalism, as indicating by iconography and artifacts recovered from their ruins. Some xenoarchaeologists in the Coalition argue that this is evidence of humanity's evolutionary connection to the starfaring race, while others insist that it is instead proof that bipedalism and bilateral symmetry is a telling trait of advanced species regardless of evolutionary origin.

## Etymology

The term "*Forefather*" does not arise from any xenological language or script from the civilization's member species. Instead, it is a term that has been placed informally on the race by the first xenoarchaeologists due to the revelation of finding such an ancient empire and their subsequent biological trait of bipedalism, in mimicry to human beings despite having existed in the earliest stages of the Paleocene period.

## Biology

All information pertaining to Forefather physiology and anatomy have been extrapolated by xenobiologists from the few recovered and non-cremated Forefather remains (in varying conditions of decay; none fully preserved found), existing statues, and other inferences taken from Forefather architecture and artifacts.

The Forefathers stood at approximately fourteen feet tall on average, with four arms diverging from one shoulder locale and two legs diverging from one hip locale in the same approximate configuration as human beings. The two outermost arms were longer than the two inner arms by about a foot difference, and the composition of their endoskeleton included keratinous proteins, in oppositional design to crystalline structures seen in human bone structure. However, their "bones" did have internal cavities in similar configuration to human bones, where it is presumed an internal matrix of growth and supportive tissue would have been stored.

### Genetics

An entire Forefather genome has yet to be truly recovered. This is due to the lack of any findings of fully preserved Forefathers in conjunction with the presumed Forefather cultural significance of cremation. However, the few pieces of remaining genetic code on certain keratinous structures from Forefather remains shows that they utilized **peptide nucleic acids**, or PNAs, as the backbone of their gene encoding system. They also utilized different nitrogenous bases, such as an inosine-adjacent nitrogenous base.

Such findings have confirmed to most xenobiologists that the Forefathers, although using several similar biochemical mechanisms of genetic code storage as Terran organisms do, inevitably do not have a direct evolutionary link to human beings (as Terran life during the age of the Forefather's existence was already utilizing DNA and RNA architectures).

## Technology

The Forefathers are inherently assumed to have been a spacefaring civilization, as this is due to the hundreds of light years of space where Forefather ruins have been discovered. Even so, there has been no current evidence as to the composition of their spacecraft, with researchers only assuming that they had some means of manipulating barospace in the same way that human Tepiltzin-Csanád Drives are capable of.

They are also implicated to have utilized some sort of highly compact and anomalous power generation technology as seen with the various powercores located within Forefather ruins. These cores, although often deactivated, can randomly activate upon touch and can deliver enough power to an entire thousand-kilometer complex. No progress has been made in understanding how these cores work, as part of the lack of success is due to the highly anomalous psychological disorders that they inflict upon those who are close to the core during activity.

## Culture

### Religion

The spiritual and religious beliefs of the Forefathers cannot be determined in keen accuracy due to the inability to find, nor translate, Forefather language and literature. Despite this fact, the presence of multiple structures across xenoarchaeological sites of the civilization reminiscent of temples does indicate at least a sort of veneration at play within the civilization - to what specifically being unknown.

## Disappearance hypotheses

There are two current hypotheses as to why the Forefathers have disappeared, as extrapolated from all known Forefather information. These are the **transcendence hypothesis** and the **total war hypothesis**.

### Transcendence hypothesis

Posited by Oxford University professor and Coalition Director of Forefather Xenoarchaeological Research, Wallace Simmons, the *transcendence hypothesis* states that the Forefather Civilization lacks any proper remains of their species except for old funeral pyre and sarcophagi remains due to their access, in some unknown manner, to a new dimension or realm of existence. Although sounding unbelievable at first - with such often leading more skeptical researchers to default to the total war hypothesis or their own hypotheses - it does have a degree of merit when examining Forefather technology. The presence of large, forked "gates" within Forefather ruins, in conjunction with the failure of uncovering Forefather spaceships and the existence of the anomalous Forefather powercores, led Simmons to postulate that gates may actually circumvent barospace entirely and take use of another realm for transit.

With this in mind, Simmons states that it is not a far stretch of the imagination to consider that the Forefathers may have ultimately used the gates to transit the bulk of their civilization onto a new plane of existence.

### Total war hypothesis

The other major hypothesis in xenoarchaeological academia belongs to Dr. Lazar M. Liber of Monatoga University on Tellus. This hypothesis, labeled as the *total war hypothesis,* disputes the transcendence hypothesis with the idea that the Forefather Civilization may have collapsed as a result of a devastating conflict. Evidence towards this includes abnormal craters on various planemos across Coalition space that have been described as "the result of nuclear and other non-typical detonations on a massive level", with radioactive isotopes such as uranium-238 being detected in the dust and crust layer surrounding some of these craters.