Darkness Falls on a Dark Land, Part 2

There is no greater figure in the galactic annals than Trey the Conqueror.  You have to remember that in his own time he was simply Trey, just another ambitious Omoxian like any other Omoxian, the oldest race of our times.  Yet the Omoxians of his time were restless.  They had just discovered that they were not alone in the universe, and they were not pleased.  The manner in which they learned this was most inconvenient indeed, as the Tikanni arrived on their world, as the Tikanni would on many worlds in the centuries that would follow, and boldly introduced themselves, an empire at the doorstep as it were making a presumptive visit.

Omoxian pride, which had already developed many wonders and brought an entire world into the very heights of evolution, could not abide being told that there was more to be known than could be found in the native soil.  The Tikanni were wise in those days, far wiser than subsequent generations would suggest.  They were gentle, and allowed the Omoxians to consider themselves their equal.  They formed an immediate partnership.  Together they discovered the Vitell and the Vanadi as well, who shared the same corner of space, and all four considered doing something greater.

It was Trey who proposed the Alliance.  He was called Conqueror because of his boldness, a title bestowed by his descendants who quickly began the effort to obscure the truth, later assumptions that because he was the name everyone knew that he had subjugated lesser beings to his will.  Not surprisingly, Omoxians were the first to call him that.  It was their way of reclaiming the birthright.  There were, as the title of his legendary band suggests, five of them.  Most of them are lost to history, and the facts of their lives become myths.  Trey is always credited with bringing his fellow countryman Rejon along for the journey.  Rejon is the most mysterious figure, the first of the Alliance to die.  In my own tongue his name sounds like the word “region,” and perhaps that is much as can be said about him with any conclusiveness, although many have attempted to apply more to it.  His significance rises and falls in relation to what people have to say about Trey himself.

The Tikanni contributed Lord Phan, a figure whose name became a whisper across time, master of the lost art of the psiglaive, friend of degenerates, a nobleman who walked away from the affair when it no longer suited his purposes, much like the rest of his people, whom the Omoxians at last convinced the rest of the Galactic Alliance to leave behind, the triumph millennia in the making.

From the Vitell came Ureic, which sounds like Yorick when a human speaks it, who would in time become the acknowledged first leader of the Alliance, after the founders had completed their adventures.  With him the Vanadi engineer Hayed, pronounced like Hades even though it lacks the “s,” who provided the very first ship and would forever be linked to the rebellions of his people, regardless of his own culpability.

The earliest tales, which are still told to children by their parents, are very romantic, heroic of the traditional order.  These five champions of peace combined to defeat Myrmidon, the villain who sought to sow perpetual chaos.  Who Myrmidon was and how he intended to achieve his goal will forever intrigue those interested in subtlety.  He’s the perpetual bogeyman in the greatest myth ever told.

As I said, it’s Trey who remains at the center of the story, the origin of everything we know, who died tragically years later, sacrificed at the Battle of Shibal so that the Alliance would survive.  There is no archeological proof that Shibal ever existed, but it remains at the heart of the whole story.  I’ll admit that my main goal is to prove the existence of Shibal, and thereby begin confirmation of the rest of it.  If it had been humans who had founded the Alliance, the record would be concrete.  We catalog everything.  We’re petrified that everything we’ve accomplished will be lost.  It’s happened before, and Armageddon has visited Earth on more than one occasion, sometimes at our own making.  That alone has given the rest of the universe reason enough to approach us with caution.  It’s said we can’t be trusted, even when we prove our intentions are innocent.

I’ve found that those who investigate the Alliance of Five, the founders of the Galactic Alliance, are never taken lightly, even when they aren’t human.  I don’t know why that it, but I won’t let it stop me.