First Contact

First Contact marks the darkest turning point in human history. In stellar cycle 2847, the mining colony of Astrid-IV was obliterated within hours by entities that, until then, had lived only in the theoretical nightmares of astrobiologists — and no mind was ready for the horror that would fall. There was no call for a truce. There was no dialogue. There was no survival.

THE ATTACK ON ASTRID-IV

Astrid-IV, with its 140,000 inhabitants, was a model colony dedicated to extracting rare minerals, a reference for peaceful cooperatives and voluntary isolation from interstellar noise. On the morning of the attack, technicians detected gravitational anomalies and an unexplained power drop — creatures with impossible silhouettes began to appear on the radars, filling the sky with shadows and lights that defied all sensory understanding.

The terror was instant. Communications stopped right after waves of unusual cold swept through the facilities, and crew members reported extreme disorientation and “presences in every wall”. The last known logs consist of a short audio recording, now kept at the Citadel of Veridion Prime for research and as a warning to the living:

“…they’re not ships… they’re something alive… they’re everywhere… the station is… [static]… the walls are moving… oh god, the walls are—“

CONSEQUENCES

• No human military force survived or lasted more than minutes in combat — the Vexro proved immune to conventional weapons, while they dismantled defenses and absorbed living matter.
• Within weeks, three more neighboring systems were subdued, and psychic waves ran through communication channels, causing synchronized outbreaks of panic and social collapse on dozens of worlds.
• For the first time, entire collections of ancient myths were revisited in search of meaning; religions collapsed, others rose from the ashes, focused on the “outer horror”.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE VYTAR

Three months after Astrid-IV, explorers spotted a strange organic structure dormant in orbit around a gas giant. There, humanity found not a weapon, but a possible symbiosis. Nestled at the core of a living ship — a hibernating Vytar — Dr. Yuki Tanaka (engineer and linguist) made the first accidental bond. For the first time, a form of resistance to the horror took shape: a collective mind, an organic structure, the potential for psychic combat.

The Starfall Alliance was founded only 47 days later, and it changed the fate of the species forever.

LEGACY

First Contact is remembered year after year on Remembrance Day. On Veridion Prime, the lights of the Citadel go dark for one hour — and during that time, every planetary communication system broadcasts only the broken Astrid-IV recording and projects the names of the victims across the night sky.

“Let no one forget: the universe doesn’t want us. Every stone, every shadow, every silence can be an invitation to the end.”