NationStates Jolt Archive

It had been years since Dark Star had had its final battle against Volphied on that fated day, when the damnable light won against the dark. Unlike the earlier battles, this last one had an odd finality to it. Volphied had... Changed more than anticipated. Before, no matter which side had "won", the two would live on to carry on their war on a later date. Yes. Neither ever had truly won, fulfilled their final objectives. While Dark Star often had managed to bring forth too great destruction to the species living within the Galaxy for them to survive, Volphied with its followers more often than not had stopped it from finishing it all.

There was a time when Dark Star almost had truly won. It had finally awoken, Volphied had been destroyed, consumed by darkness and all remained was its scattered followers who still defied Dark Star. Nothing too powerful to actively seek out and obliterate before everything else, it had thought, even if it had never found its own weapons, scattered who knew where after the last wars. In this awakened state Dark Star no longer cares whether what it kills is its own followers or its enemies, for it exists for only one, grander purpose: To bring darkness to the Galaxy.

But how wrong had it been. Those scattered remains of Volphied's followers had, much to Dark Star's dismay, gathered its own weapons, which, as it came to find out, were within the Red World in an unconscious state - if they hadn't been, there wouldn't have been a single way to use them against their maker, as they were quite loyal to Dark Star. It was painfully obvious that this had been something the other side had been planning all along, if Dark Star was ever to rise above Volphied in this manner.

Ultimately, all that lead to Dark Star's defeat. It lost a great deal of its power, and was forced to retract back to its shell and retreat into the unknown to repair, to regain its power, to plot. Of course, this had been good for the galaxy at large. Somewhere along the line it had realized that Volphied had, at some point, somehow broken free from it and was preparing for days to come, not much unlike itself.

That is a part of history it could never forget. But the latest loss had been even worse. How likely was it that a small Lost Ship like Swordbreaker, the manifestation of Volphied, could defeat the massive battlestation which was Dark Star? Not very. But it had happened. Still, Dark Star was not obliterated in the attempt, which had been Volphied's aim from the beginning. Rather, it had been relocated from one dimension to another. This would seem to their Galaxy that Dark Star had been indeed destroyed, but to where ever they had been forced into... It would be different.

After this "final defeat", Dark Star silently orbited a gas giant in some unnamed star system. Physically it was quite close to the system it had resided in before this banishment, but it could tell that it was not the same. The feel was different. Not to mention that the sun was quite small compared to what it had been. The stars were aligned differently. Dark Star was still in its deactivated state, not having been sated with the psi-energy of the clash between Blueriver and Dark Seeder. The Lost Ships, or its tools, Nezard, Ragdmezegis and Gorunova floated around it until they had known what their master desired. Two of the five were missing in the depths of unknown planets, but it was possible that they had somehow come with their master to this new Galaxy. At least Dark Star could still feel their existence.

But the issues at hand at this moment were simple enough.

One could not bring forth darkness without rebuilding one's empire. Nightmare needed to be rebuilt, even if it was hardly possible to bring it back to its former glory.

For this, the Lost Ships with the lead of Dark Seeder, the human manifestation of Dark Star itself, had sought out hapless sentients at random locations they had found, and promised them great power, having either corrupted them to do the bidding of Dark Star or consumed them for disagreeing with them. To build for it with given instructions and being given tools to do so if the society was not advanced enough - as often was the case, since going for highly advanced cultures could bring unwanted attention - , to crew it and the Lost Ships themselves...

They had been quite successful. How many could say no when promised power, wealth and the likes beyond their imagination? When these celestial things help them bring forth an end to wars which have raged for centuries? Many of these followers saw them as gods - and rightly so. Of course they could not be trusted with the more advanced procedures, but as was with most technology related to the Lost Ships, they weren't required to do much to begin with. Most of these projects would be automated anyway after a few initial steps.

With the help of these lower civilizations, fully automated mines and factories were created on their planets, and whatever they built was shipped into a location not known to them - to Dark Star. People were shipped away as well on a voluntary basis. In return, they were given knowledge which would lead their peoples into a fast track on technological advancement. They happily complied to all of the requests made by Dark Seeder - or Stargazer as they knew him as - and those who opposed were violently silenced. Dark Star had found short term benevolence to be the best way to corrupt the weak a long time ago.

Numerous unmanned shipyards in different cycles around the gas giant were tirelessly constructing unmanned ships in the same design of what Nightmare had used. Great firepower with a distinct lack of defenses. The doctrine of Nightmare permeated even its ship designs - spreading Nightmare into the Galaxy at all cost.

The original creator of it had never quite grasped how close he had been to the truth, although his own form of darkness was not quite as literal as that of Dark Star's.

He sat on what could be easiest to describe as the pilot's seat of Gorunova, reflecting upon the past and the mistakes done in the last encounter with Volphied, thinking of what could have been done better and what they would do now. After all - Dark Star most certainly had the ability to learn from its past mistakes, to evolve into a greater force.

They had taken many risks during the aforementioned encounter, ones that ended up helping the enemy more than they had expected. They had let Swordbreaker into close proximity of Dark Star itself... And instead of simply torturing Kain to make him release his psi-energy which was required to activate Dark Star, or to bring it out of its hibernation, they had gone with a far riskier path, having Dark Seeder duel Kain. While Dark Seeder was an excellent psi-blade user, he still hadn't learned much in the ways of using the blade beyond the abilities of the man his genetic makeup was based upon, while Kain obviously had.

Kain had had the upper hand in that fight from the start. There was no other way to look at it. Dark Seeder's style was identical to that of Kain's grandmother's. As was Kain's, in some respects. But Kain had fought mock duels with his grandmother before she had died - fighting against Gorunova and Dark Seeder himself, no less - and he had created a technique... Or several, who knew, to counter her. That ended up with Kain defeating him.

He sighed. It was true: He had thought that Kain would be too angry, too scared to fight him as well as he did... But much to his annoyance, nothing of that sort happened. He had somehow lost his hate and his fear. The only thing present was a horrible calm. Serenity. Happiness, even. Nothing he could work on.

But even the fact that they didn't know of the possibility of this adversary learning ways to defeat him alone was inexcusable. Too bad there was no one to punish for this oversight.

None of that would happen this time.

Not only was Volphied not in this dimension, which drastically lowered the chances of another fight taking place between the two, but they would also keep some things secret even from their own followers - like the exact location of Dark Star. They would prepare, seek individuals with the potential of awakening Dark Star... As there must have been more than just one individual with that power to begin with.

Yes. Things would be different.

"The foundation is ready, and sufficiently strong."

"Yes, master."

"What we now need is information."

"And to get that...?"

"We'll seek out star systems with high populations and high technology. I know there are such systems in this galaxy."

A moment of silence.

"... There's one in particular. One that's too bright... It saturates the galaxy and makes it harder to see anything else. Either it's a sign of a star system filled to its limit, or..."

"We should start from there."

"As you say, master."

What he had spoken of was, of course, the star system known as "Sol", or "Solar System", or whatever its inhabitants liked to call it. It hadn't been quite as crowded where they had come from. While it had been the home of humanity, and the original seat of power for a plethora of different organizations trying to keep order within the human populace in ages past, it hadn't ever really caught Dark Star's eye, so to speak. And considering that it hadn't even held the headquarters of the more recent organizations, like the Universal Guardians...

Well, let's just say that Sol hadn't been a big player for quite some time.

Only one ship went for Sol. The only one which had a trustworthy pilot.

Gorunova.

You could not trust much to outsiders, those who were now "piloting" Nezard and Ragdmezegis, nor those who populated Dark Star... And some facilities which sat closely to it. Dark Star knew that it could not go around things the way it had before. Now that it indeed had a living shell to exist within, to do its bidding in where it physically couldn't... There was no need for letting anyone close.

After quite some time spent in the star system which was even in this alternative Universe known as Sol, as he had come to hear from the local broadcasts, it was obvious that the humans and other random species of this Universe did not differ all that much of those whom they had been forced to leave behind after their troubling defeat. They waged war, formed alliances, traded with each other... Not to mention the welcome stench of fear which permeated everything they did. Fear of the unknown, fear of being hated, fear of competition and losing such, fear of defeat, fear of destruction, fear of being silenced...

Indeed, in thought and in action they seemed identical. He had managed to find only slight differences in genetics - nothing that would even stop interbreeding. The humans of both Universes were, quite obviously, of the same species. Not that this was much news, as the initial sentients they had found and taken in as very little more than as slaves had been quite human as well. The fact that those humans had not seen the kind of prosperity ever in their wretched lives they now had was irrelevant, even if they were not aware of the fact. It was only a side effect of the stability the initial actions of Dark Star always brought forth to those who followed it. Whilst they indeed prospered, their lives meant very little for those who lead them.

As it were, they did not know the true purpose of Dark Star.

But, still Dark Seeder still was within the Sol system, hiding, observing. He knew, for he was Dark Star, that the time for action would not come any time soon.

Fear was strong in them, yes, but it was the regular human condition - interpreting it as weakness would be naive.