No one is sure the exact time line of the world we now know, because in its ancient past it was quite different and a series of temporal alternations have changed the past, present and future. What is known, is an assemblage of view points from several sources none of which are contemporary to the others nor in many cases perhaps even aware of the others.
Thus, our story will be told from the best neutral point of view possible, combining these histories in an attempt to make it a cohesive whole. Apologies in advance for the sharp right turns you are sure to encounter when trying to follow along.
Teara Adan is the name given this world by the Argillian Confederation, a space faring, faster-than-light, humanoid civilization comprised of more than 100 member worlds and encompassing more than 5,000 light years.
On Argillian Confederation Time (ACT) 6,527.45.2, Captain Robert Joseph Cor’Adan, commanding the ACS Victorious, was patrolling an uncharted sector far below (map wise), but near the Kal’jeth Empire, with whom there had been off and on again wars since the mutual discovery of one another some 400 years previous.
The patrol’s long range probes had picked up several unusual energy signatures never before encountered and although it was more than 3 months outside their assigned space, the orders came to divert their mission and explore the sector.
The very first anomaly encountered was an ancient space buoy, estimated to be some 100,000 years old. The data recorder was severely aged and not a single bit of data could be recovered; but the most shocking discovery. The buoy belonged to the ASC Victorious. It matched identically to one of the emergency black boxes still on board. While this news set the crew on edge, they made more discoveries even more shocking.
About half way across the new sector, they encountered a small black hole in which tiny fragments of cold dark matter less than a meter in size were scattered about like an asteroid field. Unlike most amorphous dark matter, these shards were highly interactive and were attracted to the gravitational field of the Victorious and the ship was nearly lost when one small fragment less than half a meter cut right though the ship’s shields and hull. The Victorious crew named the location “the Mine Field”.
Three weeks later, they came upon a solar system with a potential for humanoid life and were thrilled to discover an inhabited world at a medieval technology level. Cities, nations, peoples, writing, culture, it was almost enough enthusiasm to overcome their previous foreboding at the events of the mine field and the buoy. The Captain’s log shows that standard protocols were followed and following a week’s long orbit of scanning and analysis, teams were selected and several discrete visits were made to selected points of interest.
All seemed to be progressing by the book for more than two months, when without any warning and without apparent cause the ship entered a red alert status, followed by an engine core breach, orders to abandon ship, given by the Second Officer, and emergency space buoys were released.
More than forty years passed since the Victorious was lost, when a deep space patrol, in a time of war with the Kal’jeth and Solarians, happened upon one of those emergency space buoys from the Victorious. The Argillian Confederation after analyzing the logs, diverted three starships under secret orders to that sector; a move highly questioned by certain Confederation members at that time.
Little is known of the events immediately following this order, but the consequences are self evident. The three ships found the planet and it was they who so named it in honor of the lost Captain: calling it Teara Adan or Adan’s World. They discovered the unusual energy signatures and using the records of the 40 year old buoy, began to exploit the new “technologies” in their war against the Kal’jeth and Solarians.
What kind of tech it was they discovered was kept secret even from Confederation member states. The Argillian’s, the largest of the members, guarded the secret with almost paranoid behaviors. What is known, is that Argillian agents now had the ability to destroy enemy ships simply by thinking about it.
Want to cause a reactor overload? Done. Open all the space hatches? Easy. Turn off their shields? Drop of a hat. Friend and enemies alike didn’t even call it tech. It was so beyond them, they called it magic. And it was.
The Argillian’s had discovered the portal to an energy sources outside the material plane: Magic.
And within a year, had subjugated their enemies, and even their former allies whom they did not share this new found power. Within 10 short years, the confederation was no more and a brutal empire spanning half the galaxy had emerged.
Two men can keep a secret, so long as one of them is dead. And the secret slowly leaked out. An agent was just an agent, but as each grew more powerful, each came to see himself as worthy to rule and the empire fell into civil war and external war came when other once distant races and cultures saw the opportunities to avenge or take for themselves this technology, this magic.
The war lasted for a thousand years, maybe more. No one is sure exactly, but it ended with a large battle over the very planet of Adan itself, when weapons of unimaginable tech were merged with godlike magical properties and whole civilizations, stellar empires and entire time lines were erased, remade, altered, and reborn again and again: With every faction trying to survive and with each alteration changing the fortunes of war one minute to the next.
So, what facts do exist? These few, though most of this is completely unknown to the characters in this world.
Cor’Adan’s ship? Crashed in the mountains of the North Western Hemisphere. A place now known as Kirsh in the country of Adan. Captain Adan and his crew? Robert founded the Spectral Magicians, he used the name Parshawll which was actually his mother’s maiden name. His ship crashed due to the careless curiosity of a group of local mage’s who happened to see the ‘new’ star in the sky, discovered it was a thing not a star and tried to bring it to them, of course failing to understand its size and power and the consequences of their acts.
The Kal’jeth battle cruiser Arkhonn crashed on an island in the north sea of Adan, and a Arisian Alliance ship crashed in the Sea of Gems.
The time line which follows does not conform to linear time, how could it? Several of these space ship crashes while contemporaneous to one another did not occur in the time line from which they came. Many were fighting to gain control over this world and unlock its secrets by going back in time in an attempt to discover the secrets first.
Thus, what happened and when it happened and the cause and effect of such often precede one another or are entirely absent of the causes or effects one might normally expect as a result of such a singular event.
So how did it end? How did it come to this? Who won? What even happened? Is this the real time line or an alternate? Is the war really over or are we all just pawns of some temporary time fragment about to be removed from existence itself at any moment?
If there is anyone who can say, they have not; or maybe they are telling this very tale now.