Messenger race

The human ancestral race commonly referred to by Techumic humans as the **Messengers** were an ancient, psionically powerful stage in human evolution whose civilization is thought to coincide with the development of anatomically modern homo sapiens. In the strictest sense, "Messenger" refers to the psionically-awakened baseline species of the prehistoric civilization. Whether because of some hitherto unknown period of mental evolution or from the psionic awakening which seems to have accompanied the species, the Messenger era humans were capable of skyrocketing into a faster-than-light around 140,000 years ago.

"Messenger" referred to both the species as well as its administrators. Evidence from Avalon and Yomi suggests that the term originated in the psionic leaders of the species being the "messengers" for the beings beyond the Shroud. Several other genetically-modified classes existed, including the physically larger **Guardians** and diminutive, spaceborne **Navigators** which were previously thought to be separate hominid species by human evolutionary biologists.

At some point, the Messenger Empire came into contact with the Worm-in-Waiting and took that being as its patron in the Shroud, giving it access to temporal abilities unknown by other contemporary star nations, allowing for near-instantaneous interstellar travel. The Messengers dominated the Western Quadrant for tens of thousands of years in what is commonly referred to as the Beta Cycle of galactic civilization.

The decline and downfall of the Messenger species is theorized to be tied to the last Galactic Cataclysm, a name for galaxy-wide events which cause major upheaval and societal collapse. A synthetic enemy only referred to as "the Dark" caused the depopulation of much of the Eastern Quadrant and causing the flight of billions, including the core of the Protectors of the Scaw and the Jaekudan archivists. It was this same crisis that saw the creation of the Lojumoid Continuity by the Loju species.

Evidence seems to suggest that the Messengers survived the Dark only to be subjected to some other fate soon after. It appears that something caused the mass death or incapacitation of most psionically active individuals and eventually causing a population bottleneck, forcing the psychic gene into recession until the Battle that Was and Will Be in the 2300s.

## Evidence and Temporal Anomalies

While before the discovery of the Messenger pod in 2324 the presence of non-Vultaum precursor relics befuddled the Techume, the long research into the Horizon Signal and the Worm-in-Waiting revealed many answers and raised even more questions. The most major of these was the temporal irregularities accompanying Messenger relics. For instance, the so-called Odd Factory in Proxima Centauri *should* have been completely decrepit, but remained in working order after tens of thousands of years of abandonment. Likewise, the facilities on Avalon seemed to have been mothballed a few decades previous, not for the duration of human civilization.

## Imperial Era and Messengers as Human Precursors

After the ascension of the Empress in the early 25th century, it became necessary for the Imperial Cult to place the Messengers in a greater cosmic context. The idea of a psionically-led human civilization ran parallel with dominant political theories supporting the Empress, and as relations with the Scawic Protectors worsened several xenoarchaeologists posited that the threat that eventually killed off the Messengers as a civilization was in fact the Scawic Empire before its eventual descent into decrepitude. After the Techumic occupation of several Scawic worlds during the Scawic Wars, archaeological documents seemed to support this theory. Most of the Imperial Commission on Precursors at the University of Montezuma on Aztlan is that the Scawic and Jalaekudans forcibly removed humanity's psionic capabilities after the Dark, viewing them as a threat.