Note: The Ptalar are a work in progress, and a fun side project. They are not currently involved with the setting.
Sometime during the Second Golden Age (6127 CE – 581 AR – 2966 years ago):
After a few trial runs, a small fleet of ships was assembled for an attempt at reaching the Andromeda Galaxy.
Contact was lost after their longest Transit. They were never heard from again and long distance transit was banned. The theory at the time was that we just couldn’t work through the complex math for long range transits.
A few more plans were made for shorter transit hops, but given the abundance of worlds in our own galaxy the project was abandoned.
The Lost Fleet endured however. It was designed for long duration flight, as well as being mostly self sufficient. However, they could not exist in the void indefinitely.
They were indeed lost in the vast distances between galaxies. Several attempts at a return transit left them still in intergalactic space.
6129 CE – 579 AR – 2964 years ago: They prepared to make shorter transits in an attempt to return to known space, but a unique opportunity appeared. While preparing for their plan, they encountered a rogue planet. While normally useless, their ships were loaded with terraforming equipment, mining rigs and everything they would need to survive on a near-sterile planet.
They set down on the darkened surface and set to work making a subsurface colony. For a time, that plan worked.
They experimented endlessly with the mathematics of long range transits, finally making some progress. It would still require more than 25 years to reach the nearest human outpost however. No human could survive in microgravity/zero-g for more than a few years.
Their plans needed to change.
A medical researcher developed a form of cybernetics that could be maintained by Nanomedical Devices indefinitely, so long as they had access to power.
Similar to Sigmatech Cyberonics in the 4th age. This was more akin to artificial biologics, rather than complex machinery.
The power needs were solved with efficiency. Power is derived from the body of the user. Through both movement and borrowing some of the natural electrical energy created in humans.
They had a practical solution to abandon their flesh and become beings that could survive indefinitely in space.
During the process of conversion, several Morocaschic infiltrators were found, refusing the process.
Morocaschics were unknown to humanity during that time and the humans of the fleet had no idea what to make of them at first. But through interrogation, they learned of their plans to attack humanity. Some of the problems the fleet had endured during their journey was due to Morocaschic sabotage.
The humans began the mass conversion and discovered many more of the alien infiltrators. Realizing that the situation must be many times worse back in the Milky Way, they had a decision to make.
It was clear from what they learned from the aliens that the fall of humanity was inevitable. Even if the fleet returned to the galaxy, they could not hope to make much of a difference in that outcome. So they chose to stay in the void.
They burrowed deeply into their rogue planet and finished their conversion.
637 PC: Thousands of years later, they detected evidence that humanity had arisen again. It was time to return.
Entering into the opposite side of the galaxy, they found the remnants of the Morocaschic civilization in ruins, having been nearly wiped out by the Lacir. Despite knowing that the aliens had caused the downfall of human civilization, they were horrified.
They chose to wait and watch from the Dead Zone. The galaxy was much changed from the time of their departure. They began to take stock of the various factions and aliens. They learned of the Kyserians as well. They saw them plotting to attack humanity and the Lacir when the time was right.
They operated from their rogue planet. Now converted into a massive transit capable [[Planet Ship]]-like marvel, even greater than what the Kyserians had built eons ago.
They came to realize that they had been gone too long and were too detached from humanity to rejoin their biological ancestors. So they decided to leave the galaxy once again.
Heading back towards the original destination of the Andromeda Galaxy, they found that the beings known as the Yill Maingess still existed there. Only the vaguest of myths recounted the times of the Ceaseless Fray.
They wanted to avoid a conflict with them at all costs, so they kept their distance from the galactic core. But to their surprise, the Yims approached them.
Despite a millennia of fighting, there was never any record of actual contact with the Yims, so they approached the situation with a cautious optimism.
The Yims spoke in fluctuations in space time. Patterns that they were able to convert into understandable language with their advanced computers and mathematics.
The Yims recognized their ascension into artificial beings, and offered them no hostility, so long as they did not interfere with “The Plan.” The nature of this was never fully understood, but unlike the humans ~3500 years ago, they knew that it involved things within the galactic core and they need only keep their distance.
As far as they could tell, Andromeda was lacking any sentient species at this time. They found ruins of various civilizations of the past. It was deemed highly unusual that the Milky Way had multiple civilizations spread throughout the galaxy in the same era.
1162 PC: The fleet, underwent a great diaspora. Now fully capable of living in almost any environment, they colonized millions of worlds in a few hundred years. Turning the once uninhabited galaxy into one teeming with artificial life.
They were contacted again by the Yims, who again seemed pleased by their progress. They offered some of their primordial technology and returned to the core.
This technology would allow for direct Hubspace communication, near limitless transit distances, reaction-less drives (Traction System) similar to the Inter-Realm Traction System, but much more efficient and provided considerable acceleration.
The Yims existed as much in our Realm as they did Hubspace. If not for the brief moment that ships lingered there during a transit, we may have noticed them earlier.
No explicit reason was given to the fleet as to why they were given these technological wonders, but they immediately put them to use. Movement between planets became as simple as walking through a doorway. Space flight was quick, energy efficient and widely available. Near instantaneous communication across their vast civilization was a huge step up from typical HubComm methods.
Much of this technology could be miniaturized as well, leading to personal devices that allowed for transits and communication.
Present (~2400 PC): Before they realized it, the humans of the fleet were now in a place where they had the entire universe at their fingertips. But they weren’t human anymore. Despite still retaining a semblance of their original forms, they were now immortal, nearly god-like machines.
The Kyserians had adopted cyberonics to enhance their forms, but lacked the will to fully embrace the technology. The Lacir did not have the technological know-how to advance beyond what they are. Humans were doomed from the start, a short lived self-destructive species that would ultimately fade into the deep recesses of time.
They of the fleet, who would become known as The Ascended or Ptalar were the best chance intelligent life had at a perpetual future.