Only War Lasts Forever

Prologue

During the last 10 millennia, numerous governments, kingdoms, empires and militaries had risen and fallen because of war. There had been even more numerable smaller rebellions, factions, and supposed-liberators splintered among the many planets that were then and now inhabited by the human race.

The number of battles that had taken place during that time, and the number of people involved, were perhaps too many to mention. In fact, historians of that time period had been so overwhelmed with things to take in and put down, they often missed significant events and battles.

Humans weren’t the only beings that inhabited the galaxy, either. There were several other races that were quite possibly much older than the human race, and were already establishing themselves outside of their home planet by the time humans came about. One such race was the Uun-di race. They had an affinity for exploration and diplomacy. In fact, there was the entire possibility that the Uun-di had been visiting Earth before modern day humans came into the picture.

About the 23rd century, in Earth years, humans began to colonize the planets that surrounded Earth. The first planet to develop a colony that was larger than one billion people in the 24th century, was the planet then-called Mars. When that happened, the galactic community contacted humans for the first time. In the past, the galactic community had visited earth on numerous occasions for strictly observational purposes, and always remained as hidden as possible. But now that humans were able to take themselves off of Earth and able to survive on other planets, the more advanced races accepted the humans as one of their own.

After humans discovered they were not the only sentient beings in the universe, there was massive upheaval in human religion, culture, and politics. Had those other races known what would have happened, they might never have preemptively approached the human race.

What the other races had neglected to take note of was the fact that the human race was not united on all fronts, and that in actuality it was not their unity that drove their progress in space exploration, but rather their desire to out-perform each other. So when the human race realized they were not alone they went into a frenzy of sorts. Many humans who at one time were submissive to authority suddenly became rebellious. Still others who were once believers in Earth’s many religions found themselves with countless questions that used to only be theoretical but were now factual. Even more, individual identity seemed to disappear almost over night.

During this turbulent time, so many changes were made to the human identity that space exploration took back-seat to plain survival. Many had stopped working, and others simply committed suicide, either literally or figuratively. This lead to the demise of the then-typical way of human life. Since so few were concerned with anyone but themselves, everything that the human race had achieved collectively imploded. This event took place in a mere 50 Earth years.

Due to the sudden collapse of the human race, many in the galactic community felt guilty over causing such trouble. There was much debate about what to do. Some races favored helping the humans back on their feet as a means of repaying their debt. Other races felt that helping the humans would only hurt them long-term. After all, if humans could not manage something trivial on their own, then when a real crisis happens, they would always need support.

This was not the first time that a race had fallen from glory in the galaxy, but it was the first time that such a thing had come about to an undeserving people who were still relatively young and fresh. The matter created a rift between the many races, and the galactic community became divided, with races like the Uun-di who were for helping the humans, and races like the Dryll, a cold and calculating race, who thought it best to let the humans come around in their own time.

During this time, a human known as Darrek Fentran had somehow managed to begin conquering Earth at a rate that was unseen in all of human history. Such attempts had been made in the past, but humans seemed to have favored political individualism over unity and stability. Regardless, Fentran had managed to, after several bloody years, conquer the entire human race. Once he had become their supreme ruler, Fentran stepped into the galactic stage and claimed that humanity was stable enough to received as a fellow sentient race among the other races.

Few questioned how he had done it, but all were relieved that the matter had been resolved. Shortly after, though, Fentran and his military swore loyalty to the Graaffiks, a war-like and brutal race who’s goal was to conquer every corner of the universe.
There are three prominent races in the galaxy, the Uun-di, the Dryll, and the Graaffiks. These are by no means the only races, but they were the most established and oldest of races at that time.

There are several types of races in the galaxy. There are races like the Uun-di, who are delighted to explore every section of the galaxy and are friendly almost to a fault. Then there are races like the Dryll, who are devoted to what humans call “science”. To the Dryll, though, they called it what humans call “life”. This was because to the Dryll, science is life. There are also races like the Graaffiks, who are a war-like people and hold the way of the warrior in high-esteem.

For eons, these many different types of races, all of which who came into their own through their philosophies, lived in peace with one another. The fact of the matter had been that though they all thought differently, they did not see other races as inferior. Rather, they all helped each other in some way. The Dryll and other races like them would create technology that other races like the Uun-di and the Graaffiks would use for their purposes. The Uun-di and other races like them would explore and provide resources for the other races. And the Graaffiks and other races like them would provide relative security for whenever a race or group of races would act-up and begin causing large amounts of trouble to the other races. For the longest of times, there was one large consensus that all were friends and backs would be scratched by everyone.

Humans, however, were something of an oddity. They, as a race, were not united in philosophy, yet somehow manage to work together long enough to achieve something. Some humans were war-like, others peace-loving, still others were academic in nature. This was partially why the many races had trouble deciding what to do with the humans once they had fallen apart.

Once the humans had come together under a singular government though, such worry left the other races. But unfortunately, such relief was short lived. Darrek Fentran had managed to conquer Earth, but only with the help of an external source. During the unrest among the races of the galaxy, the Graaffiks, who were the most prominent and established military race of the time, took advantage of the confusion and secretly supplied Fentran and his military with the technology needed to conquer his planet. They had done so, however, under the condition that he swear loyalty to them once he had finished his task.

Normally, the Graaffiks’ consolidation of power would have been fine with the other races, but since this time it involved a fledgling and recently proven unstable race, this was extremely odd.

During the next 1,500 Earth years, the Graaffiks took the humans under their wing and helped them to establish themselves all across the galaxy. Throughout this time, the human race went from a population of 20 billion and a planetary colonization of a handful of planets to a population of 800 billion and a colonization of over 3,000 planets.

All seemed to be going well, until a large Uun-di controlled planet was sacked and virtually destroyed by an unknown force. Tensions had already been high, but when news of the attack hit, every race instantly blamed each other. It didn’t help when the Dryll, who were already an introverted people, decided to cut communications with the rest of the races. All planets controlled by the Dryll went under lock-down, and none were allowed to leave or enter.

Once further investigation had taken place on the ravaged Uun-dian planet, it was discovered that it was in fact a lesser race known as the Jijjites, a war-like people with a history of arrogance and excessive defense of pride, that had done the attacking. Jijjites denied ever having been near the planet, yet it was found that Jijjite weapons technology had been used in the assault.

However, around this time a Graaffikian general defected from their military, and came out saying that it was in fact, not the Jijjites as the evidence suggested, but the humans who had done it. He claimed that the humans had stolen Jijjite ships and then used them to attack the planet. Lastly, he claimed that they had done so completely under the orders of the Graaffikian leaders.

The Uun-di were outraged by this news, and quickly decided that such an act could not go unpunished. The Uun-di allied themselves with the Jijjites, who were enraged by the fact that the Graaffiks had incriminated them in their schemes, and launched a massive assault against one of the largest Graaffik controlled planets.

This battle is often considered the first fight that started the 10,000 years of war, during which time the humans and many other races found themselves at different points in time divided again and again into hundreds of different groups. Some humans remained loyal to the Graaffiks, while many others realized that the Graaffiks had been aiding them for so long because they wanted to use a race other than themselves to start a galactic war. This led many humans to break away from the Graaffikian military’s control, but those that broke away found themselves not agreeing on who to ally themselves with. So even more division was caused when the humans began to ally themselves with several different races, and some even choosing to remain neutral.

One such neutral zone with a large human population was the Fresda-Conna trade route. Because of its nature as a trade route, there were throngs of species from nearly every corner of the galaxy inhabiting the 32 planets which composed the route. It was, at first glance, a prime place ripe for the picking for the war to come, but it never did, at least not in a very large way. In small ways, though, the war managed to creep into the peaceful lives of its inhabitants…