
We were the first-born children of Creation, and we were proud.
Ours were the first rocky planets formed when the galaxy had just begun its spinning dance. We rose from the first seas and looked up to see arrogant young stars burning, hot and bright and never dreaming they could die.
We fashioned tools, raised cities, fused atoms, and rose like angels in an airless abyss to claim the Black Land for our own. We believed that the galaxy belonged to us, and that we belonged to it. We fell in love with the stars, and thought they loved us back.
For millennia we were alone, quietly extending our presence. Everywhere we went, we changed, and tried to become one with our surroundings. We did not conquer our homes. We let them conquer us.
My people flowed forth in peace and melted on contact, merging into sand and leaf and stone. Absorbing the new, and becoming something new ourselves. A thousand planets took us in and we became a thousand species, each unique, each one at peace—in harmony with its own world, and all the others.
When the first wars came, we could not understand.
How could there be a need for such pain? How could there be a lack, in the midst of such abundance? How could anyone believe that there was not enough for everyone?
Why did they have to take what was ours?
And yet…we did not wish to die. We loved living. We loved life.
We did not wish to flee. We belonged. We wished to keep our homes.
We built defenses. We drew invisible lines in the void, and would not let strangers pass. We defended our invisible lines with murder.
We called this “justice”. We called our cage, within the prison of our invisible bars, “security”.
But it was not enough. Beyond our borders, other worlds were burning. Even the stars were winking out, snuffed like candles before their time. What could we do?
One thousand agreed to undergo the procedure. Amid the tumult of a thousand races, each world chose the one person that they believed would be best. The strongest. The bravest. The most intelligent. The most just.
I was one of many chosen to be a hero. We proudly gave up our lives to become the Peacekeepers. We gladly gave our souls to the machines. We were sacrificed to the one great cause, that which is highest above all: Life itself.
We went forth into the universe, and we did as we were told. We made the killing stop. We quenched the fires of destruction. We punished the guilty, and spared the innocent. We brought the galaxy to its knees.
And the strangers hated us for it. They never believed that we had deprived them of pain, suffering and death. They only saw that we had robbed them of victory.
As the centuries passed, one by one…the pacified took their revenge. When the mission began, the transmissions of my fellow Peacekeepers filled the galaxy like the roar of the sea. They were a great chorus, constantly singing our song: “No one dies today.”
But everyone’s day comes eventually. One by one my brothers and sisters fell. One by one they were killed by those they tried to save. Soon among the Pacified, powers arose that could easily bat our weapons aside. They destroyed their own wardens and then fell upon our people in a storm of vengeful hatred.
Hundreds of my brothers and sisters left their stations, abandoned their mission, and fled back to their parent stars, trying to defend their former homes. Those of us who remained at our posts, who held to the mission, were cursed as cowards and traitors when we would not go home to die.
And perhaps we were. The worlds that gave us life are now barren of life, a thousand burned husks tumbling in the dust of a thousand shattered stars. All that remains of the brothers and sisters that died cursing me are a few broken fragments of steel, and the shrapnel of memory that burns in my soul.
I am the last Peacekeeper. This is my song.
“Sentients of galaxy orandos violet oration. Hear the peacekeepers of stellar generation prime.
Your violence against each other has attracted the attention of this Enforcer. While it maintains this sector, all acts of interstellar violence will cease, and all production of war vessels shall halt.
Should the Enforcer detect either aggression, OR a build-up towards aggression, it is programmed to take steps. Steps BEYOND YOUR IMAGINING.
All these worlds are yours.
Use them together. Use them in peace.”
I am old, and I am weary. I no longer believe that the stars love me back.
But mine is the love that never dies.