"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

Ephesians 6:12

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."

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Even in the ages of antiquity, we looked longingly toward the stars, wondering what secrets might lay out there waiting to be discovered.

Rapid population growth, dwindling resources, and severe climate change forced our hand in seeking out new frontiers beyond the Solar System. With astonishing breakthroughs in space-faring technology, humankind soon branched out to far away systems, like seeds floating on the wind of destiny to take root on new worlds.

However, the vast relativistic distances between the stars would make contact impossible. Thus, we knew it would be a one-way trip.

We have long since forgotten our stellar origin, forced to develop from the ground up. The mythic tales of our forebears passed into legend, and then eventually, into the whispers of madmen. We had no choice but to believe that we were alone.

That was, until we finally crossed the Divide and made contact with Khagilos, the sister planet that orbited our own; meeting the strange beast-like people that inhabited it for the very first time. We traded our knowledge, and for a time, it was good.

Seemingly from nowhere, a war greater than any in recorded history broke out and swept across the Divide into our very homes. The death toll on both sides rose into the billions.

It would later be named the Twenty Year War, and its consequences would lead to the collapse of civilization as we knew it.