This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/CT_DIY on 2024-12-26 21:59:50+00:00.

Glok entered the embassy with a timid reservation. He had never seen so many Ancients in one place before. He was the only non Ancient, he knew they were strange there Chitin shells everywhere but was not prepared for the strange garments they why wore the strange white white straw looking things hanging from their primary eating orifices. They all stared at him some of them making laughing gestures as he walked by.

From his translation device he heard “He has no idea” and “sweet summer child” as he walked by. He did not understand at the time what theft met but in the years that followed he would. He entered a very plain looking room, it was not of Ancient design it was very foreign, a plain room with white walls, a chair and a table. He did not understand as the ancients preferred more naturally formed accommodations. He sat in the chair waiting for the ancients to come, they never did. A very strange being materialized in front of him seemingly standing on two legs and stared at him with a predatory glance. The being moved its mouth muscles up and showed raw teeth before speaking. The thing in front him him asked “do you know why you are here?” and waited.

Glok froze, he was in the presence of a predator. It looked almost casual but its eyes watched every movement he made. It seemed amused by his response and did what his translator described as a ‘laugh’ amusement. He had never seen anything as terrifying in his entire life. Shortly after an Ancient came into the room, they looked at the predator casually and said “there is no need to scare him.” the aberration disappeared.

The Ancient looked at Glok and said “Do you know why you are here?”. Glok responded that he was best suited to learn more about the universe. The Ancient chuckled and said “Is that so?”, he tapped a button on his wrist. It showed a map of the galaxy and at each edge of the galaxy a red pulsating light was showing. These were areas that Glok considered unexplored, he had never heard of any sentient being that far out. He only saw a light pulsating between white and black, yet clear as the sunrise on his home planet, there was flashing lights on each of the very edge of known space.

The Ancient stared at Glok, there are things in this universe that are better left untouched as we discovered a long time ago. Glok, confused, looked at the Ancients not understanding when two symbols appeared on a viewscreen in front of him, the first was of an orb with land masses, it looked very peaceful, the second was of a rectangle, there were horizontal lines as well as an upper corner that looked like stars. The Ancient suggested looking at the patterns in a narrow band of light. When Glok adjusted his viewing to these new parameters the orb shot to life in color, the rectangle did as well. The orb was a blue-green, the water a blue, the land masses a green. The rectangle was less subtle, it was white and red with a blue behind the white stars. He took a moment to take it in as the ancient spoke. “These are the symbols of a people who broke us.” “They hunted us almost to extinction and right before we were exterminated they said ‘there are bigger fish to fry, your burden will be protection’ left us and said ‘take care of them.’” That was hundreds of thousands of years ago, when their spur went dark.

They did not stop fighting us because they wanted to, they stopped because there was something worse than us. They left automated systems that have guided us through the generations but we have not seen them since. Every attempt to break into their bases has been met with disaster.

Just as the Ancient finished his sentence there was a strange sound that echoed across the embassy. Glok would find out later it was a warning “Inter-Galaxy threat detected, defend yourselves”. At the time it was a guttural cry of a primitive species, what little he knew then.

The holo display of the ancients was interrupted. The normal 3d display was changed, it was 2d text that shown on the screen. Glok’s translator hummed to live attempting to translate:

Chanserv: spur warning system: multiple unknown hostile targets inbound

Chanserv: admin: awaking qrf assets

Chanserv: milky milky: local assets alerted

Chanserv: admin: informing local allies of threat

Chanserv: admin: start disengage protocol

Chanserv: admin: standby for unfreeze