Sequence: The First Lantern

*"The first to wear a ring was not the first Lantern."*
―Oa Scripture

## Background

The Universe was just barely past its infancy well it fell into chaos. Species that had accelerated its technology sought to impose their will on more primitive worlds. Forces of destructive might without names plagued the galaxy and chaos outbalanced creation. This was all seen by a group of scientists from the planet Maltus, who could not allow it to continue.

## Events

### Discovery of the Light

The Maltusians scoured the universe in search of weapon that they could use to restore order to the universe. One Maltusian, by the name of Ganthet, did not agree with the idea of a deterrent being needed to restore peace, but refused to stand by while death reigned. As such, he conducted his search a bit more differently than the others. While the rest sought weapons in a more conventional sense, weapons meant to take life, and, as such, attempted to make dealings with the Weaponers of Qward, Ganthet hoped to find a weapon that could be not just a sword, but act as a shield as well.

Ganthet's searches took him to the furthest reaches of the unknown and into stretches of space not recorded on any database or log. In this darkest corner of the cosmos, Ganthet detected an odd energy signature. The signature brought Ganthet to a barren planet, devoid of life, which only piqued Ganthet's interest further. After a few weeks on this planet, Ganthet ended up empty handed, but refused to back down. He pressed on for weeks more, running through his resources as his body withered until one night, on this lifeless rock, he witnessed an entity seemingly made of green light swimming in the sky as if it were an ocean. Ganthet followed the entity to a cavern deep within the planet. There, Ganthet found the energy he was looking for.

Quickly, Ganthet summoned the rest of his fellow Maltusians to this world and, together, they swiftly got to work on a battery that could contain the strange energy that ran throughout the planet. They were successful, creating the Central Battery. Next, the Maltusians sought to harness and concentrate the energy into the weapons they truly sought after.

### Forging of the Rings

The Maltusians attempted to forge weapons capable of channeling the emerald energy, but were met with failure after failure as the energy proved to be far too volatile and erratic for them to properly control and channel it through conventional weapons. However, they would find success one night when the Maltusian known as Krona cleared his mind of thoughts and emotion, allowing him to steadily channel the green energy into a concentrated form. It was a long and agonizing process that Krona pushed himself through, until a token of his devotion to order lay forged in his hand: a ring.

Seeing and understanding the process behind the ring's creation, a group of the Maltusians agreed that for the betterment of the universe and to be able to produce more rings, they must forsake and lock away their emotions, allowing them to operate purely on logic. With their inhibitions locked away, the Maltusians got to work on forging more rings and when that was done, they gathered that which they deemed to be the greatest warriors in the universe, intending to choose the first of their corps.

### A New Era

With these new weapons, the Maltusians were quickly able to arm those they deemed worthy and began impose their order upon the Universe. Appointing themselves as the "Guardians of the Universe," the Maltusians expanded the ranks of their corps and stretched them across the furthest reaches of the cosmos, using the once barren planet, which they had renamed Oa. For the next 500 years, the influence and notoriety of the guardians became widely known and while many would come to accept this newfound order and peace, there were naturally some who would resist, most notably a race of insectoid conquerors known as The Reach.

The Reach aimed to fight the Guardians on their own terms and developed weapons of their own, which would culminate in their "scarabs": apparatuses armed with an AI with the power to manipulate its metal structure to create constructs and weapons. With these weapons in hand, The Reach was easily able to disrupt the peace the Guardians had been able to establish in the past 500 years, as well as slaughter countless of the Guardian's soldiers. The Guardians attempted to fight this by modifying their rings so they would automatically seek out a suitable candidate once its wearer had perished, allowing them to keep their ranks and numbers strong in their battle against The Reach. However, their strategy, while preventing them from losing ground, only prolonged the war that threatened to envelope the cosmos. It soon became clear that something drastic would be needed in order for this war to ever end.

### The Pioneer

*"This is battle. This is real. Not one of your books where you may invent a solution if you so please."*
―Unnamed Ring Bearer
The war between the Guardians and the Reach raged on, with each delving further into more drastic and desperate actions. The Guardians were replacing essentially expendable recruits as fast as they lost them while the Reach would drop their scarabs onto unsuspecting worlds and amass a planet of unwilling soldiers. The Reach had long grown tired of the conflict and had decided upon a final hail mary, allocating their resources and forces for one final strike on Oa and the Guardians themselves.

However, things would take a turn when the ring of a fallen warrior returned to Oa. As the Guardians questioned why it did not seek a new warrior to wield its power, the ring suddenly latched itself onto a nearby scribe named Avra. The Guardians considered the event to be a mistake, a programming error they must've overlooked, as Avra was a lowly and meek scribe, a far cry from what the Guardians considered to be a warrior. However, try as they did, the ring had chosen Avra and the Guardians could not change this.

Avra began his training like most new recruits, though he attempted to approach it a different way. Having recorded the story regarding the forging of the ring, Avra speculated that perhaps the rings operated and responded to one's emotions. However, Avra would have little time to test his theory, for the Reach's final attack had reached Oa mere days after Avra's ring had chosen him. With the others, Avra flew into battle. What followed would be recorded as the bloodiest battle in the history of the cosmos. The conflict lit up the skies of several nearby worlds as countless fell in battle. Though, it became apparent that the longer the battle raged on, the Guardian's forces were weakening in power, with the energy in their rings becoming less potent. This continued on until ring bearers began to flee the battle, convinced that the weapons that had chosen them did not hold the power needed to overcome such a fearsome threat.

However, Avra would not run. He fought on, even as those who retreated called him a fool. Even the Guardians began to see the battle as a loss. But Avra fought on, unwilling to back down. In these moments, he remembered his speculations and became convinced the only way they were to win this battle was to will it so. Avra fought back against the insurmountable odds stacked against him, overwhelming The Reach with a blinding emerald light. Then, from that burst of energy, Avra held in his hand a sword forged through the ring, made reality from his willpower. The first construct, held in the hands of one who was no longer just a scribe, but the First Lantern.

With construct in hand, Avra single handedly turned the tide, creating blades the size of moons and artillery the size of stars to combat the Reach's forces, obliterating and laying waste to their armada. With the rest of the ring bearers returning to battle to aide Avra, the Reach, exhausted of resources and warriors, saw no other option than to retreat and go into hiding. With the battle over, Avra began to see the toll that his usage of the ring had inflicted on his body. Avra passed on, dissolving into emerald light as his ring went on to seek another bearer.

A monument in Avra's name was built on Oa, with him being set as the ideal that all the ring bearers should aspire to. Though none could replicated the feats Avra could with his ring, they were all bestowed his title so they may better understand their purpose in the universe: to be the light. It would be in Avras name, that they would be known from that point on as the Green Lanterns...