Requiem for the Conqueror

Prologue

The most common phenomenon in evolution is the failed experiment. The measure of such is extinction.

In the beginning, the Others created the Mag Comm to teach and monitor humanity. The Mag Comm had never seen its creators, and knew them only from the instructions they periodically sent through the shimmering strands of the Forbidden Borders. When the giant machine considered the Others, it couldn't help but regard them with a sense of awe and worship.

How else does one perceive one's creator?

The Others had known of humanity and learned the species' predilections through long study. Over the eons, they'd watched the fate of teachers and leaders, and learned the value accorded such venerable masters by their flocks. Accordingly, the Others had placed the Mag Comm in the deep rock of Targa where its main banks would be protected by a mantle of resilient basalt. The lone terminal and headset could only be accessed by a single tunnel that opened to the chambers above. For power, the Mag Comm drew on the radioactive decay that heated the planet's core — a virtually endless supply, and one the humans couldn't sever.

No matter what humans might think, they needed the Mag Comm's careful guidance. Humanity hadn't always been penned within the Forbidden Borders. Once humans had been wild and free, captives only of their native planets gravity and atmosphere. During that era of humanity, the Others had observed, curious about the species' ability to survive.

Then humans broke free of their planetary trap in crude ballistic vehicles, and, of course, they brought their brawling violent ways to space. The Others dared not expose them-

selves to the humans, for doing so would lead to confrontation, since humans feared and loathed anyone or anything that didn't fit into their tribal identity. Humans culdn't be allowed free, so what could the Others do? Faced with the ethical dilemma of exterminating the species they built a containment system and lured humanity into the gravitic bottle of the Forbidden Borders. When humans had filled the Forbidden Borders, the experiment was sealed, with the home planet Earth, safely quarantined beyond.

Within the Forbidden Borders, humans could be studied and their reactions to various stimuli recorded and investigated. Through the generations, the

old knowledge of Earth was pruned away. Through the voice of the Mag Comm, different programs were initiated, and various strategies adopted to teach humanity to be rational. The last attempt at behavioral modification ended abruptly when the Others learned that the Seddi priests had hidden the Mag Comm's existence for their own gain. In retribution, the machine was ordered to cease communicating. The Mag Comm continued to process human data, but as punishment, refused to communicate through the mind link until a generation of humans had passed.

Perhaps that had been a mistake, for when the Mag Comm reestablished contact, Free Space had changed.

The Others had lost all hope that humanity would become rational. Without constant vigilance and discipline, human beings refused to act in a rational manner. A grand experiment had run its course.

Now the Others would passively bear witness as a species caused its own extinction.