For scholars and seekers of knowledge in the history of humanity, one of the events that marked a milestone in technological development was the so-called Rangdan Incursion.
That xeno species, incredibly hostile to all forms of life, was the first great enemy the fledgling Confederacy had to face in its early days.
The details of that war were kept secret from the general public; only the high command knew the true magnitude of the horrors they faced.
Even so, that experience became a silent pillar of the Confederacy’s progress—the Confederacy that would later become the mighty Dominion, the greatest stellar empire to arise after the Cyber War.
But I had the good fortune to hear these stories straight from my aunt Lucy when I was little.
“Ah, little one, have I ever told you about those days of war?” she used to say to me as she sat me on her lap.
Her eyes would sparkle as she remembered, and although some of her stories scared me a little, I couldn’t help but stay and listen, spellbound.
“It was a hard war.
We faced creatures like no one had ever seen before,” she would go on, speaking of the Rangdan, those terrible and deadly xenos.
“It was like fighting a living shadow, a force that showed no mercy and never rested.”
Even so, her voice would change when she reached the end of the story, and you could hear the pride in her tone.
“But we beat them, and in epic fashion, kiddo.
It was a victory that still makes me smile to this day.”
I would sit there thinking about those words, never quite understanding how something so horrifying could turn into such a memorable victory.
One night, no longer able to hold back my curiosity, I asked her why there was nothing about those battles in the public records.
Not even about the Rangdan; by then, even the existence of daemons was considered public knowledge, and they were blamed for many of the tragedies that marked the end of humanity’s First Golden Age.
But she didn’t explain anything.
She just told me, with a mysterious smile:
“All in good time, young master.”
But my curiosity was already awake, and it was simply in my nature to need to know more.
Some time later, I thought I’d found a lead.
During one of my family’s visits to the Helions, to spend some time with my other siblings, I overheard the maids whispering about the secrets of the mansion’s library.
They said it held information of every kind—the perfect place for anyone who wanted to learn in secret at night.
Although, of course, there was one small catch: they swore that at night a ghost appeared in the hallways, roaming around to scare anyone who wasn’t in bed.
And so, what was the first thing I did?
Exactly what you’re thinking.
That very night, while everyone was asleep, I slipped out of the room, dragging my five siblings along on this secret mission.
We moved silently, our hand lamps covered, trying not to make a single sound as we crept toward the library, eager to see both the mysterious books and the so-called ghost.
But when we finally reached the main hall and had spent a while searching in silence, an icy sound echoed through the air, and we all froze.
In the gloom, we saw a spectral figure emerge from the shadows, floating and spreading out a mass of tentacles that seemed to move as if they had a life of their own.
A shrill, bloodcurdling wail filled the hallway, and at that moment we all jumped in unison.
Panic seized us and, without a second thought, we ran off in every direction, screaming at the top of our lungs and waking up the whole house in the process.
In the end, every adult in the mansion found out we had snuck into the library.
The “ghost” vanished without a trace, but, of course, the scolding we got was no phantom.
They made us kneel with both arms raised in the air, while the girls—and Nova, the princes of the night’s friend—couldn’t stop laughing and taking pictures of our little misadventure.
Childhood memories of young Angron
One day later
Sprawled on the ground among rubble and dust, Samuel, Lucy, and Deus gazed up at the clear sky, a sea of blue that seemed almost surreal after the chaos and destruction of the battle they had just fought.
The sound of silence was disconcerting to them, like a distant echo of everything that had just happened.
Ruins and the remains of their enemies surrounded the three AIs, who, despite their advanced systems and their ability to regenerate, felt… exhausted.
Samuel was missing an arm, and his chassis bore a deep gash across the face where the Rangdan blades had struck.
Lucy, with severe damage to one leg and a hole in her torso, gave off little sparks every so often as she tried to focus her vision.
Deus, who was missing both legs and an arm, could barely move, but for the moment he didn’t care.
All three of them simply wanted to be there, enjoying the strange peace left behind after the storm.
“It’s over… we won,” Samuel said.
“Hooray!
Who’s buying the drinks?” Lucy cheered.
“I’d say whoever got the fewest kills pays, right?” Deus pointed out.
“How many did you get?
“Does blowing up a moon count?”
“No, just this last battle.
If the moon counted, you’d have already won.”
“Oh, well.
Then I got about one thousand seven hundred and fifty in total.”
“I beat you.
I got one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine.”
“Damn it…” Deus muttered.
The three of them laughed—if a set of advanced AI systems could be said to laugh.
Each one’s laugh was different, a reflection of their personalities, but in that moment it was the expression of something shared, something that went beyond their programming.
Suddenly, several support soldiers approached, ready to carry them somewhere safe and carry out the necessary repairs.
Samuel raised his one remaining arm and stopped them.
“Wait… leave us here a moment longer.
Just a little longer.”
The soldiers hesitated, but withdrew respectfully, leaving them to rest on the ground.
Light, purposeful footsteps approached their position; it was Iris, hands on her hips and wearing a smile that held a mix of weariness and humor.
“Damn, looks like they gave you a real nice beating.
Was it tough?”
“It was pure hell.
Got any news?
Tell me.”
“Well, the situation on the other fronts is almost settled.
In a few hours, the planet will be ours.”
“Hooray!
You know, I move that nobody comes in to work tomorrow,” Lucy said.
“Seconded,” Samuel added.
“And what about Erde?
How’s the situation in the capital?” Deus asked.
“Well… looks like things are stabilizing there too.
It’s just a matter of time before it’s all over.
But I’ve received reports of casualties on several worlds.”
“That sounds serious,” Lucy said, her tone suddenly grave.
“There were human losses.
The lack of organization caused chaos, and Charlotte did what she could to calm things down.”
“Even so, I’d call it a victory,” Deus added.
“Good, good,” Samuel said.
“Have the surrounding worlds been mapped yet?
Are there any more Rangdan hiding out there?”
“According to the scouts, it looks like there aren’t any left.
So, guys, I think we can finally get some rest.”
But the conversation was interrupted by shouting in the distance.
Iris turned toward the voice and let out a sigh.
The three lying on the ground looked up and recognized who was approaching.
It was Adán, running toward them, visibly excited.
“Guys, I did it!
Guess what happened!”
Tell me.”
“Well… I finally managed to capture some Rangdan alive!”
Samuel, Iris, Lucy, and Deus exchanged astonished looks; one of them even made a sound of disbelief.
“Whaaat?
You did what?
Who gave you the order to carry out an operation like that?”
“Told you he’d get mad…” Lucy murmured with a smile.
“Well, actually, Deus gave me permission, and he even assigned me four platoons to carry it out.”
Samuel turned to Deus with an intense stare, but Deus looked away, avoiding eye contact with feigned calm.
“All right, Adán.
You have exactly ten seconds to give me one reason not to punish you.
And it doesn’t have to be a great reason—as long as it’s… valid, I’ll settle for that.
I’m listening.”
“Well… where do I start?
It turns out that, during our reconnaissance operation…”
Adán began to explain every step of his mission in excessive detail, talking nonstop for more than ten minutes, while Samuel brought a hand to his temple.
“Fine, fine, you win,” Samuel cut in, exasperated.
“I asked you for a reason, not a dissertation.”
“So what’s next?” Iris asked with a smile.
“For now, we’ll leave a forward base here.
Everyone else, get everything ready to head back.”
“Finally,” Lucy sighed with relief.
“Oh, by the way, Samuel.
We found something in a mine during the exploration.”
Adán held out an object to him: a stone of the deepest black, which seemed to swallow the light and had no shine whatsoever.
Though it looked ordinary at first glance, Samuel knew at once what he was holding.
What they had found was, without a shadow of a doubt—and he hoped with all his might that he was right—black gold.
“Iris, change of plans,” Samuel said with determination.
“Organize a mining team.
I want them to start extracting this mineral immediately and send it to the scientists so they can study it.”
“Understood.”
After several days of logistics and organization, Samuel and his company boarded the ships back home.
The grueling task of reconstruction awaited them, just as the arrival of the second expeditionary fleet was about to enter the equation.
Over the following year, the foundations of the Confederacy and its organization were finally laid.
Until then, Samuel had used the UNSC name somewhat informally, to refer to the entire space force as a whole, but now, with the Confederacy consolidated, each of its branches would at last have an official, well-defined place.
The first of these was the United Nations Space Command, the UNSC proper, formed by the union of every stellar nation.
As a military, exploratory, and scientific agency, it served above all as the main force for defense and military operations in the space of the Confederacy, and later of the Dominion.
Its ranks were filled with recruits from many worlds: the force that would in time come to be known as the Marine Corps.
The second was the Colonial Administration Authority, the governing body in charge of administering the colonies and all the worlds lying outside the Confederacy’s direct sphere of influence.
The third was ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, which acted as the UNSC’s intelligence branch.
Its work was crucial to guaranteeing humanity’s security: besides gathering information on alien military forces and technology, it made sure classified data never saw the light of day, and it funded the research and development projects essential to the survival of the species.
Though formally subordinate to the UNSC, in practice it operated as an almost independent military agency.
The fourth was the UNSC Army, which, unlike their brothers in the Marine Corps, who were deployed mostly on expeditionary operations, was devoted primarily to ground operations.
It was the main defensive force of the various worlds, and also the pool from which, over time, new recruits for the Marine Corps itself were drawn.
In times of war they were formidable warriors, but in times of peace they also provided an invaluable force of engineers, technicians, builders, and designers in charge of public works and of improving existing colonial infrastructure—a corps that also included AI units.
The fifth branch was the UNSC special forces, equipped with the best armor and the best technology available: the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, or ODSTs, specialized in multiple combat roles, and from whose ranks recruits were selected for the augmentation program, also known as the SPARTAN Program.
Finally, there was Samuel’s own government, with its own emblem: what would come to be known as the Ecumene.
Its form of government was organized around a caste system that any AI could freely choose to join, giving rise, in the process, to a race made up entirely of artificial intelligences that fought shoulder to shoulder with the Confederacy.
In time, the galaxy would come to know them by another name: the Forerunners.