Backstory, by me
Three. That is truly a number of interest. A prime number, a strong number -- a triangle of three sides and vertices. Three, a sound number. Three, a sign of the end. Three... Three is the number of times humanity has already nigh utterly obliterated itself. Three, the prelude to four. Four, the end of all of mankind, brought about by himself.
In the past several tens of thousands of years, humanity has waged a total of three interstellar wars. Millions upon millions of planets had been decimated during each war, and entire mountains of corpses and lifeless machinery had been created. And with each war, humans have only refined their proficiency in the act of destruction.
The first interstellar war occurred around 3616 Common Era, or CE. The power of the atom had been fully exploited, and a dozen star systems had been colonized. The first war started when the main monarchy of mankind attempted to annex all star systems once and for all. The colony star systems that resisted banded together to fight the monarchy. Nuclear weapons, radiation cannons, and conventional chemical explosives were the main weapons of war. Nearly all of mankind was thrown in to the war when civil unrest on both sides caused a third faction to form: the People's Confederacy.
Every single man, woman, and child was conscripted, able-bodied or not, and sent to fight. Through inhumane acts of slavery, rape, torture, and sadism, all three parties coerced more sheep to arm for war. Over a thousand years, humanity and civilization eroded away slowly, and then came a dark period of time eventually in which an uneasy peace settled and populations stabilized.
Civilization began once again in the form of small hunter-gatherer clans and farming villages. In good time, people were able to find the old technologies from before the interstellar war and use them to aid the people's recovery.
When civilization recovered, a surreal reality took hold -- nothing was quite like the past. Conflicts were still to be had, survival was still the top priority, people went about doing their business. Except, everything was stranger and more alien than before the war. It was as if life had its arm amputated. The period of relative peace was filled with fear and tensions -- no one could be trusted. But everything appeared to be calm and serene on the outside. Of course, appearances can be deceiving, and they were.
In the year 11389 CE, fear became the tyrannical lord of men. So strong was the emotion that it affected man's other emotions. Love became hate, euphoria became depression, pride became jealousy. The catalyst of all this was the development of and the economy surrounding magnetic, kinetic, and laser weaponry, though the last was still in its infancy of development. The often corrupt but highly influential weapons companies were almost worshipped, and several large corporations that spanned across the star systems were often employing private military companies, or PMC's, to protect their capital and assets, property, trade routes, research laboratories, and star space (equivalent of air space). These few rival corporations, already in heavy competition and suffering from the paranoia induced by the previous dark age, constantly alarmed each other with the hiring of PMC's. So, they each perpetually hired more and more PMC's, trying to build greater armies than each other, creating a cycle that will inevitably collapse upon them. Vast webs of the kinds that are woven by lies, truths, deception, and trust were lain across many smaller companies and PMC's of various sizes by the few interstellar corporations. All of this caused the inevitable and apocalyptic collapse of enormous proportions. The fine walls of peace were literally dissolved by the contradictions of allegiances that smaller companies and the various PMC's had made to the large corporations.
In the year 11546 CE, interstellar war broke out again, the weapons being mostly kinetic and magnetic, but even some directed-energy weapons were utilized. Terror reigned supreme, and unimaginable super weapons were brought to bear, annihilating entire planets with as little effort as crushing a dried leaf.
With this much power in their hands, the large corporations attempted to wipe each other out, as the multitudes of alliances conflicted. The interstellar war was bloodier than even the first as greed and fear produced a fatal solution. History was then repeated, as the large corporations used slavery and fear-inducing tactics to coerce people into being conscripted. But it didn't work. Why? Because their tactics were not terrifying enough to pass the threshold of the fear induced by the past. Instead, a second People's Confederacy was formed and threw itself into the fray, placing faith upon chivalry, valour, zeal, courage; the honourable qualities. The pressure caused by the several corporations with the People's Confederacy on top led to the second downfall of mankind. The war only required eight hundred years this time to demolish all that mankind had built (or rebuilt, in this case).
The peace that followed carried with it the values that the People's Confederacy had instilled in its people. The past technologies were deemed unholy and destructive, and as development progressed, the virtues of the People's Confederacy deteriorated, though one was refined. Only zeal remained, and in gratuitous amounts. The civilization that grew from the ashes upheld zeal. Yet like before, society's rebirth brought about something alien. The past fear fuelled irrational zeal, anger, and hate. Spiritual and religious faith replaced the greed of the last era. Trust in technology was weak initially, but when the time came, even technology grew to become a part of the religious faith that spanned across the star systems. Thus, society came to be very spiritual, intertwined with technology. Only, their deep-seated distrust of technology severely limited the development of society and technology in general.
But the peace could not last. The third interstellar war broke out in 34836 CE between the main spiritual faith and a cult that quickly grew in size. The events that preceded the war included the appearance of active psychic genes in the human chromosomes. Scientific pursuit in the field of psychic potential was stomped upon by the followers of the main faith, who saw the psychics as blasphemers. The people bestowed with the psychic genes gathered a cult over the years, and when the psychic populations reached several billion, the main faith undertook a great campaign to purge all those who had active or latent psychic genes. That was when the third interstellar war began. Zealous crusades began and ended, but the psychics prevailed and proved to be a formidable military force. In this era, directed energy weapons were the primary armaments of soldiers and vehicles. But the psychics had one more weapon to use -- telepathy. Psychics could use telepathy to create psychic fields to distract enemies, but the most powerful of psychics could control the minds of their enemies.
The third interstellar war lasted six hundred years, and only required that many to destroy what mankind had accomplished. The psychics were totally obliterated, while all of the other survivors had only latent psychic genes.
Peace? Peace. Yes, peace took over once again. Humans were reduced to their most humble beginnings -- wandering animals -- and the peace of nature soothed them. The third interstellar war had literally reduced humans to nomads, and nearly all of the previous structures and technologies of the past were obliterated or lost. The few humans that had survived the war were utterly befuddled by the few artifacts, and worshipped them as gifts from the ancients.
It took as long as nearly thirty thousand years for the miserable animals to scrape up a meagre civilization, something equivalent to the society of the third millennium. By that time, it was the year 75623 CE. And like the past, something was wrong. If life appeared to have its arm amputated before, then it now felt as if life had all of its limbs amputated. And such as it were.
Humankind had reached a kind of threshold for survival. Its genetic makeup was too weak and diluted to survive naturally, and the skills and knowledge from the past were lost. Overshadowed by their predecessors, the survivors spent their time not developing themselves, but worshipping the past instead, and attempting to relocate past technologies. All in an attempt to rebuild the past that had brought them into the situation they were in. The only reason they could survive was because of the few past technologies they were able to unearth early on in their recovery, and because they had taken shelter in ruins and machine graveyards.
Some four hundred years later, soon after the colonization of several nearby star systems, psychic genes began to become active once again. But long before then, people had already known of what had caused the third interstellar war -- the psychic genes. Society then underwent a great schism. With its genetic powers, would society purge the genes or support its growth? Half of society agreed that it had been wallowing in the past for far too long, and that it was time to bring about a new era of independence. Half of society demanded that the genes be repressed in order to honour history.
Once again, interstellar war broke out again.
The fourth interstellar war, the war that will drive humanity's survival capabilities below the threshold of requirement, and push humans into the brink of extinction. It began in the year 76029 CE, and every weapon, technology, and psychic technique was raised from the past was brought to bear.
The fates have already sentenced humanity to extinction. Four hundred years is how long mankind has to bring about its own extinction -- but its capacity for destruction is great enough to accomplish it in less.
What had happened though, in those four hundred years? Well, that is when you come in.
