Contact: Ether

Background

Omath

For as long as history has remembered, Omath has been home to human beings. Some ancient records suggest perhaps our distant ancestors came from elsewhere. Most however dismiss these conclusions based on the extensive fossil records and ancestor species that have been discovered by natural science.

Across the span of time great civilizations have risen and fallen, but now a new phase has been entered. For the past century industrialization has bloomed across the face of Omath. The substance etherite and the vast energies it can produce have made this industrialization possible. It powers the great ships and planes that ply the world and even the small motorcars that are mass produced by so many nations. It has even allowed satellites to be placed in the planet’s orbit.

Enjoying the fruits of this industrialization, great powers have risen to bestride the globe. Great armies, air forces and fleets have built up, and war is between the great powers is in the offing. As tension mounts however, events outside Omath intervened.

The Battle

In the year nineteen forty six war suddenly came to Omath. Star gazers and astronomers detected strange lights in the night sky. Military radar posts and observation stations also showed activity at high altitude. Soon the sky was lit like a firework display, energies being discharged above interfering with wireless and radar sets across the globe.

Two vast fleets of space craft where attacking one another in the skies about the terrified planet. Soon wounded and dead ships began to crash down into the planet its self. The lethal rain fell indiscriminately, causing heavy damage to areas where it fell heavily.

Eventually, after five days of fighting the battle broke apart. The alien fleets had been almost exterminated by the violence they had inflicted on one another. A few vessels limped away towards their home bases, leaving the battlefield to the startled inhabitants of Omath below.

Investigation of the wreckage revealed much about the aliens, and allowed the Omathians to gain various advanced technologies they had not previously had access too. It appeared that Omath’s richness in etherite was almost unique to itself. The alien’s technology utilized far smaller amounts of etherite. For this reason while much more refined and superior in almost all areas, the natives of Omath would not be completely overpowered by those of the off worlders. Many of the superior systems also operated better against one another’s technology than against the more primitive Omathian devices.

The great powers began to salvage as much technology as they could in order to both maintain their own positions and create a defence against any further alien aggression.

For if the planet held such great wealth it seems unlikely that the aliens will not return to Omath.

The Combatants

To the surprise of the natives, both groups who came to Omath were fairly human. Many had strange additional features such as horns, pointed ears, cat ears, chromatic hair or variant skin tone. Some even seemed to have machines built directly into their bodies to varying degrees. Despite this they were far less inhuman than the Omathians had expected.

Analysis of the records found in the ships however showed that there was something more to this than simple parallel evolution.

The Empire of Fate

It appears that, eons ago, humanity moved out from its lost home world and reached many planets and dimensions These worlds where initially isolated from one another for long periods due to the nature of the systems used to spread humanity. Extensive terraforming introduced species from that long lost home, providing those ancestor species which exist on Omath.

While many human powers exist the greatest of this area is the so called Empire of Fate, hundreds of different human species held together by the rule of the Great and Merciful Empress.

The Empire is unchallenged by any human power in this area, but it does have one major problem: an inhuman one.

The Created

The Cacophony are a strange group. Myriad in form they seem almost completely unable to comprehend humans. They are however large, highly technological and sometimes like to take natural resources such as etherite that humans have. This has led to several major clashes with the forces of the empire.

In response to this clashes and their incomprehension of humans, the Cacophony responded by creating their own humans to do the fighting for them. They may have reasoned that this would allow a proper war and negotiation to happen.

Bought up in kindly Cacophony created enviroments the created worship their creators as incomprehensible gods and are quite willing to fight for them. Over the last ten years they have again and again used the Cacophony’s advanced technology to confront the Empire of Fate with varying degrees of success. The battle above Omath was simply the largest so far.

If they can secure Omath, the Created hope its vast stores of etherite will please their masters and allow them to conclude the war with the Empire. If this happens, perhaps they’ll be able to chart their own destiny among the stars.