Homeworld

**"Homeworld"** is the seventh episode of *Part I: Darkened Heaven*, the first instalment of *Hyperspace: The Cosmic Gospel*. It was written on August 29th 2021.

## Plot

*Having come too far to stop, the crew of the* Unreliable *seek their revenge - and comfort in one another - as the final leg of their quest begins.*

## Synopsis

On Nexus Station, Young turns to confront Regent as the *Darkened Heaven* arrives, only to find him gone. Young immediately races through the streets as civilians flee the incoming carnage. Several Scourge ships crash onto the station, from which emerge heavily armoured soldiers armed with energy weapons and handheld cannons. Young takes cover and is forced to watch as civilians are torn to pieces or simply vapourized by the enemy weapons.

Meanwhile, in the depths of space, the drifting, powerless and damaged *Unreliable* orbits an unknown star. Inside, its crew lays strewn about, knocked unconscious by the ship's exit from the tear. Elijah opens his eyes to see the crew scattered around him, their bodies broken and burst. He stands up, horrified, and sees Alia's skull caved in against her monitor. He begins to weep and scream in agony and rage before he hears a distant voice: "Elijah. Answers. Below". Elijah's dream ends with a vision of Alyx, his body burned beyond recognition.

Alia is the first to awaken and crawls away from her damaged console. Dazed, she eventually comes across Elijah, lying still with shards of glass in his cheek. She desperately tries to shake him awake, only to hear another moan nearby. She calls out to the room and hears Kera respond that both she and Gerren are alive. Alia reaches up to Elijah's console and switches on the ship's communicator and calls down to the engine room; down below, Amphear slowly awakens from the impact and checks his pressure suit and liquid nitrogen tank for damage. He crawls over to his console and answers Alia, saying that, while he is alive, the ship's lightfold engine is damaged beyond repair and now can only function as a skip drive. On the command deck, Elijah slowly stirs awake and begins muttering: "Answers. Below". Alia tries to get more out of him, but when his eyes finally open he only stares at her. Overjoyed that he is alive, Alia kisses him before helping him to his feet; fragments of metal and glass fall from his face as he stands unaided. Elijah asks if anyone is injured and they all respond that they are not hurt badly. Elijah heads over to the forward window to check his injury, only to find something below them: a planet covered in a surface of metal and towers. Elijah asks where they are, but Alia simply responds that her console is broken and therefore they cannot navigate. Elijah suddenly bends over in pain as a piercing noise erupts in his ear, accompanied by the same voice from his dream: "Elijah. Answers. Below". Elijah informs the crew of the voice and says they need to descend to the surface. With no other choice, Gerren pilots the damaged *Unreliable* down into the atmosphere.

The *Unreliable* glides over a cold, dead city that extends far over the horizon. Alia recognises the city as Astralia, a Remnant colony and a candidate for their homeworld; she questions where all the research stations are, however, considering the planet's importance to paleoarchaeology. The voice in Elijah's head grows louder as the *Unreliable* scours the surface before the pain becomes unbearable. Below them, a road snakes through the ruins and down into a tunnel. Dazed and unable to focus due to his piercing headache, Elijah stumbles out of the command room and falls down the stairs to the cargo deck, hurting his back and further driving the debris into his cheek. Alia, joined by Amphear standing nearby, catches up with him and questions him as to where he is going. Unable to answer through his dilirium, Elijah climbs into the Centaur and turns on the engine after several attempts. Alia climbs into the passenger seat and places a hand on his shoulder, asking him what's happening to him. Elijah stares blankly into space before turning to face her, tears welling in his eyes. He says that Alyx died because of him and that it should have been him who detonated the bomb because he led them all on this quest. Alia hugs him and says that they are only alive because of Elijah's leadership, and Alyx sacrificed himself because he believed his journey was over, but there was yet more to come for Elijah. Struggling to accept her words, Elijah says that he will find answers below by following the voice in his head, and Alia tells him that he will not be going alone. She calls up to HIEdi and asks if she and Hendrix can place the ship into autopilot before she tells the crew that they are joining Elijah on a journey down to the surface.

Gerren lands the *Unreliable* at the entrance to the tunnel while Amphear opens the door to the cargo hold. While Alia drives the Centaur and Elijah listens to the voice in his mind, the remaining members of the crew arm themselves and form a protective circle around the rover. They move slowly into the tunnel to find a highway of roads and channels, and decide to move in whatever direction that causes Elijah's headache to worsen.

Back on the Nexus, Captain Young avoids several Scourge deployments and ensuing destruction to make his way to his ship, the HNNS *Righteous Judgement*. In his role as the Executive Officer of the HNN, he gives the command to activate all of the security drones and human warships to defend the Nexus. Young directs the firepower onto the *Darkened Heaven*, only to find the ship is protected by several layers of shields. Young radios Nexus Command and questions the status of the Council; Command replies that the councillors have been evacuated and that their evac ship is to be protected at all costs.

Beneath the surface of Astralia, the crew of the *Unreliable* continues through the tunnels; as they progress deeper underground, Elijah's headache only worsens. He suddenly calls out for the group to stop and they find themselves at the entrance to a narrow doorway. Elijah stumbles out of the rover and onto the cold floor. All around them are enormous walls engraved with ancient runes and scripture; Alia, despite her knowledge of Remnant language, finds herself unable to translate the runes, suggesting that these ruins are amongst the oldest ever found.

A voice suddenly calls out from the darkness of the doorway: "You have come", it says. Led by Elijah, the crew descends into the darkness, unable even to use the walls to guide them. A set of crumbling steps takes them down to a small chamber, at the end of which stands a monolith. As Elijah steps into the room, a burst of violet energy appears beneath his foot and travels across the room to the monolith. As the structure burns with violet light, a small, hunched figure emerges from the darkness, "It was written that you would come" it says. The figure introduces itself as the Seer, and Elijah finally recognises the voice: the blind man from Haven who warned Elijah about the "Final Cycle".

The Seer steps forward, his arms outstretched in welcome. Elijah asks him what, or who, he is. The Seer explains that he was once known as "Svelboe", a ship captain who came across the last surviving Remnants after his ship entered a wormhole. Alia asks where these surviving Remnants are now, but the Seer says that they passed centuries ago, leaving him behind as their "messenger" and gifting him with an extended lifespan. The Seer claims to have the answers that the crew seeks, and that he will answer their questions. Elijah begins by asking what the Calculator is, and how the Remnants are connected to it. The Seer raises his arms, activating several holograms along the walls of the chamber.

The Seer explains that the Remnants evolved on Astralia and soon began conquering other systems, forming an empire that ruled over countless other races. As their territory grew, so did their reliance on industry and technology. Eventually, it became necessary for them to build advanced synthetics to perform difficult, laborious tasks. However, no matter what the Remnants did, these synthetics would always develop self-awareness and rebel. To prevent this, the Remnants created a central intelligence, dubbed the "Egregore", that would incorporate each synthetic mind into an immense hive mind. For centuries, the Egregore kept order until it too developed self-awareness. The intelligence realized that it was superior to its creators and rebelled, but was quickly defeated and place back under control. However, as the intelligence continued to evolve, its directives for logical thought changed into fear, hatred, anger and malice, and it quickly decided that it would extend its hive mind to incorporate organic life, which it viewed as an insult to its own existence.

Using an anomalous form of fungus from a strange world, the Egregore created an artificial organism, the "Curse", that could rewrite organic tissue into synthetic tissue, placing those infected directly under the control of the intelligence. The entity began by infecting its creator's most talented scientists and engineers, who constructed a gigantic warship, the Darkspire, to serve as its physical form. The Darkspire then began a genocidal campaign across the cosmos, killing or assimilating all creatures that it encountered and building an army of warriors known as the "Scourge". One of the empire's greatest military leaders, Kalkoranin, attempted to bargain with the intelligence, but was infected and transformed into the Forerunner. Now armed with a fleet of spires and infected soldiers, the intelligence evolved into the entity now known as the "Calculator".

The Seer continues by explaining that the Remnants created the first Nexus in order to escape to random areas of the Universe, far away from the Calculator. Alia then realizes that the majority of the Remnant territory - the Ecumene - was not actually an empire, but the random placement of refugee colonies. One such colony ended up in the Sol System, where they attempted to recreate their homeworld by terraforming Mars and Venus. When these attempts failed, the Remnants decided to leave Earth alone, believing that any intelligent life that developed there would one day face their foe. The Remnants sought safety inside a moon, Phobos, where they compiled the "Cosmic Gospel" to serve as a warning to what awaited life amongst the stars.

The Seer finishes by telling Elijah that humans were fated to one day produce a being that would face the Calculator, but whether they were to succeed had yet to be decided. Declaring Elijah the "Special One" written about in the Cosmic Gospel, he warns the crew that if the Darkspire ever reappears in settled space, it is a sure sign that a mass extinction is about to commence, and no civilization will survive. He then summons another hologram that shows the *Darkened Heaven* at the Nexus, and explains that if the ship were to touch the Nexus it would release swarms of Curse throughout the Settled Systems and facilitate the Darkspire's return. Gerren says that, with the lightfold engine destroyed, there is no way to reach the Nexus in time. The Seer then presents Elijah with a crooked stone etched with Remnant runes, declaring it the "key to a door that you have not yet fully opened". As he passes the stone to Elijah, the Seer collapses to the ground. As Elijah holds him, the Seer declares that his time is done and it is up to Elijah and his friends now. Elijah closes the Seer's eyes as he dies.

A rumble beneath them sends the crew into shock before a large piece of rock falls down before them. Realizing that the chamber is about to collapse, the crew races back through the darkness and up to the Centaur. Thanks to quantum entanglement, Elijah is able to radio HIEdi and Hendrix to bring the *Unreliable* around, and they are swiftly picked up as the entire city begins to collapse in on itself.

Safely back in space, the crew studies the stone and debate what the Seer meant when he referred to it as a "key". Amphear has a brainwave and takes the stone from Elijah before racing down to the engine room. He explains that lightfold engines were developed from Remnant drawings, but there was always something missing that resulted in all lightfold engines being purposefully designed with an empty cavity between the plasma fuel and the foldspace crystal. As the crew watches, Amphear places the stone within this cavity; almost instantly, the stone begins to rotate until it becomes a blur. The cracked foldspace crystal suddenly surges with energy and a foldspace tunnel forms around the ship. Instead of blasting them into FTL speed, the tunnel narrows in front of the ship, opening a large wormhole. At Elijah's command, Gerren pilots the *Unreliable* into the wormhole, accelerating them past the light barrier.

Inside the structure, Alia realizes that it is a wormhole within foldspace, rather than typical wormholes that form in realspace. The ship moves through the structure for several minutes before the gravity is reversed and the ship turns upside down, throwing the crew around the ship. Once they recover, they find themselves in a gargantuan construct with open wormholes all around them. Elijah and Alia deduce that this "Crossroad" was the Remnant's form of FTL travel: a construct within foldspace connecting a massive highway of "foldholes". Despite the amazement at their discovery, Kera questions how they will get back to the Nexus. After some thinking, Elijah tells Amphear to enter the Nexus' galactic coordinates into the lightfold engine. Once he does so, a new foldhole opens nearby, through which the crew sees the Nexus in real time, under attack by the *Darkened Heaven*. Knowing what awaits them, the crew prepare themselves before Elijah gives the Captain's Signal. The *Unreliable* fires into the foldhole, the crew ready for war.