[ WP ] Scientists have finally discovered the homeworld of the Humans , a race that thousands of years ago conquered the galaxy then vanished .

Their arrival was heralded by whiteness. Any system capable of receiving electromagnetic signals in the local non-optical communications band was suddenly caught by a pristine, uniformly distributed burst of radiation for a tiny instant. Then a pause. A burst, twice as long as the first. A pause. A third burst, twice as long as the second. A pause. And it would repeat, over, and over, capacitors bursting, antennae melting, communications ceasing, overwhelmed by a tidal wave of energy. 
 
 By the time the pattern peaked, it was clear its source was artificial and intelligent and monstrously frightening. Sensor grids were useless, and what was initially dismissed as noise could only be resolved in telescopes, those ancient instruments of burnished crystal lenses and creaking gears. 
 
 And those unlucky few whose eyes were pressed against the viewpiece would come to understand the doomsayers of yore. 
 
 IT moved slowly, its method propulsion unclear. Stars slipped behind IT as it lumbered, casting shadows on planets and moons and rings. Surfaces jutted out at irregular intervals and angles from ITs body, obsidian black, any lights too small to be seen. ITs complexity and size defied imagination, mere scraps on its immense trunk dwarfing any vehicle in orbit. 
 
 And when IT arrived, with IT came Them. Fleets upon fleets of sleek craft, boasting armament and shielding far beyond the scope of any defenses they encountered, blotting out the sun. And as the craft landed, legions emerged, marching in lock step, their armor a glimmering white, their weapons crimson, their helmets visorless, faceless - ivory monoliths. And only ruin was left in their path. 
 
 Within a cycle, a bright jewel would be extinguished, its people scattered, its civilization laid to waste. They would board Their crafts, Their crafts would enter IT, and IT would blink away. Any attempt to warn others was futile; anything capable of sublight communication was rendered useless by ITs herald cry. 
 
 Alliances forged even among bitter rivals to end ITs destruction were left in shambles in its wake; it would appear in real space just long enough to wipe out entire armadas, then blink out to continue its slow path. 
 
 As news slowly spread and ITs journey was charted, ITs destination was clear - the galactic core, home to the oldest, wealthiest, most powerful peoples. Yet they fell to the same fate; if their world was in the way of IT, it was destroyed. 
 
 And finally, IT had come close to the void. And as voicelessly as its legions, it approached. ITs image was trapped forever at the event horizon, a haunting reminder of the destruction IT had wrought upon the galaxy, the hundreds of words shattered and billions of sentients slain. 
 
 It took a century for the fear of another IT to abate enough for governments to consider a future without Them. It would take a millenium for those societies which lost their core worlds to rebuild. And it would take ten millenia for what had been brutal reality, then history, then myth to become true again, with the confirmation of Their origin - a rocky husk of a planet, its oceans long since boiled away, third from its sun.
