[ WP ] In the near future , mankind explores the stars in search of life . Life indeed exists beyond Earth , but you , a researcher on a science ship , discover that all of the spacefaring alien civilizations died out . Curiously , their deaths seem directly linked to humanity reaching outer space .

Commander Xandar was standing quietly in the middle of the bridge. The navigation and tactical crew busy at work around him. He was doing his best to appear calm and in control, to be a solid beacon to the men and women under his command but the truth was that he was scared hopeless, he barely slept and he was terrified. Being chosen to lead the great assault fleet of what remained of the Gordian Galactic Empire was no small achievement but the nature and viciousness of the ennemy terrified him. 200 assault cruisers, 84 heavy gunships, 15 heavy frigates and over 10 millions soldiers, it was no small force but he feared it was not nearely enough to attack the unknown ennemy that had decimated over 90 % of the Gordian Empire in only a matter of years. 
 
 The Gordian Galactic Empire was a beacon of hope and justice across the galaxy dating back thousands of years. 5000 worlds, spanning countless solar systems, united under one banner, one central power that was both strong and just. At the core of it all, the neurotek implant. Each citizen of the Gordian Empire had a universal communicator and translator implanted at birth, creating a giant hive mind to insure everyone, be them so little, had a voice in the decisions of the Empire. 
 
 About 30 years ago, it begun. A bright white pain felt troughout the Empire. Something had completly erased a small sector of the Empire and somehow there had been an echo that traveled trough the hive mind affecting everyone. Rescue missions turned up more questions than answer. 12 planets were affected, 85 billions people dead. No destruction, no sign of any external assault, but every one of them, dead. We were still trying to understand what could have happened when they struck again. This time 45 billions dead and a great pain felt troughout the hive mind. Chaos errupted, accusations of terrorism flew left and right at all corners of the Empire, civil war broke out. The responsible party could not be identified and the frequency of the attacks grew, so did it's effectiveness. No sector of the galaxy was spared. 
 
 Various teams of scientists offered to sacrifice themselves for the good of the Empire. They set themselves up near sites of previous attacks with recording equipments, ready to broadcast live coverage and then they waited. The next attack came 2 weeks later, recordings showed the scientist screaming in agony, going mad. Some of them took their weapons to their heads to end the suffering. After the recordings were recovered and analyzed, it was determined that a yet unknown ennemy had found a way to attack our one weakness, the hive mind itself, previously thought to be unbreachable. A signal was found to be at the center of the attacks. It traveled trough space and when it came into proximity of the hive mind, it entered our neurotek implants. We have n't been able to decode it but it appeared to be a frequency too high to actually be heard by Gordian ears but powerful enough to wreak havoc into the hive mind, resulting in lethal pain and suffering to those close to it. A signal so strong yet so unique had to have been specially created to attack Gordian phisiology. It was as cruel as it was effective. 
 
 This discovery led to one great hope, the signal used by our ennemy was linear and was eventually traced back to a small planet, previously thought to be inhabited. Scouting parties were sent to investigate, it was a suicide mission to go so close to the source of the signal but the sacrifice was necessary. Before disappearing, our scouts confirmed that the planet was indeed emitting the deadly signal. Not only that, but they were sending it out in all directions, to make sure none of us would escape it. There was a pattern to their attack, once a Gordian sector was found, the signals would concentrate, assuring complete destruction and then the search for a new sector would resume. 
 
 Given the aggressiveness and unprovoked savagery of this ennemy, it was decided to send out every remaining warship as a last hope to destroy them before they could erase what little was left of the once great Gordian Empire. 
 
 Commander Xandar was taken out of his daydreaming by the sound of the proximity alarm. His officers were running across the bridge. They had been seen. It did n't take long for the first signal to reach their fleet. Even with new heavily reinforced implants, the signal still managed to do considerable damage. Xandar fell on one knee, the pain in his head was unlike anything he had ever felt before. He witnessed his first officer take a plasma riffle to his own head. Most crewmembers were rolled up on the floor, screaming and weaping. As additionnal signals concentrated on their location, the fleet quickly turned to chaos. Multiple ships collided trying to turn around and flee the effect of the signals. Xandar was lucky, for his own ship was one of the few that managed to get away from the signal mostly intact. Most of the fleet was now silently floating in space, the crew dead. 
 
 He was preparing to return to Gordian space with dire news when the proximity alarm sounded a second time. Something physical, a small craft had appeared on sensors. This was the first time the ennemy had sent out a spaceship against them. What remained of the fleet turned to face this new challenge but to their surprise, they found only a small probe, unmanned. Preliminary reports indicated no weapons but possibly a message inside, impossible to decode without their best scientists. It was Xandar who made the call to bring the probe to the Gordian Senate, assuming it was an offer of surrender by their ennemy. He found himself examing it multiple times during the return trip. It was surprisingly crude, primitive. One would have expected a civilization powerful enough to bring the Gordian Empire to it's knees to have more advanced design capabilities. The probe looked like it had been cobbeled together from bits and parts left over from previous projects. There was a shiny golden plaque on it, with pictures of stars, a celestial map identifying the ennemy planet and 2 weird creatures that Xandar assumed were meant to represent the ennemies. So great was their boldness that they had engrave their pictures on their call to surrender. 
 
 The probe was thoroughly examined and all broadcasting equipment was removed before it was brought to the senate. The greatest scientists and political minds of the Empire were present for it's opening. But for all our preparations against a new attack, we never would have been able to anticipate what was found inside the probe. Pathogens. Viral pathogens unlike any we had ever seen before. Most dignitaries present during the opening died within seconds. Like the signal before them, those pathogens appeared to have been specially designed to wreak havoc with Gordian physiology. We thought our ennemy had offered us a last chance at survival, insted they merely wanted to exterminate the very lasts of us with renewed cruelty and savagery.
