A burst of light flashed through the dark vacuum of space, distorting space/time as a sleek, white vessel emerged. Bearing 3 'tails' behind it and a small size, the "Seeracuda" exploration ship and commercial crew scour the vast frontiers of Sune space for new worlds, new discoveries, and often intel regarding any possible hostile faction's expansion into territories thus unseen. The captain lays on his belly on the center island on the bridge, accessing the situation on his holo monitors. His fur is a pure white from the solar radiation, his tails bearing the colored ribbons of an explorer, yellow.
"Alright boys, what do we have in this system?" he calls out casually, this being only one of hundreds of stars he has visited.
"A lot of rocky worlds here, I count 6 rocky worlds in the inner system with one in the water zone." A similarly white furred, but green bellied Sune replied, "6 more planets, 1 massive gas and 2 medium class. The rest are smaller gas spheres."
*Ah a lucky find." he thought, though he was skeptical. "Does the habitable world possess liquid water?"
"Scanning," he scratches his chin, "No sir. The world is bone dry. An extremely thin atmosphere too, barely any... oookay..." he blinks.
"Okay? Okay what?" The captain taps his console impatiently.
"Detecting vast remnants of water vapor, liquid water, the atmosphere has elements of breathable atmosphere but reduced heavily. This world was once habitable. No indication of solar activity that would strip the atmosphere like that. And..."
"And what?" the captain starts to grin.
"And.... a faint energy signature. I don't know how to explain it."
*That's something!* the captain thought. It isn't rare to find a world that could support life and posses water to be stripped clean, but this world has something...
"Well then. Helm, take us in. I want to look at this world."
The exploration ship activated it's massive plasma aerospikes and zoomed through the solar system, arriving at the world and orbiting it.
"Viewscreen is on, Cap," the scientist calls out.
"Alright what have we.... wh...whaaa.... what is this....?"
Perfectly circular trenches, massive canyons stretching in straight lines, whatever this world was, it wasn't like anything seen before...
The exploration vessel landed a team in EVA suits to explore the world. Several Sune attempt to trace the energy readings when they came upon a wretchedly eroded cave. Or what looked like a cave. An archaeologist brushes the walls, finding them comparatively smooth compared to rocks. A wall. "The computer reports this stuff is.... -ancient-."
"No surprise, Dink. We find remains like this a few times."
"Not on a world like this. Thousands of years old... just wow. Talking.... Three to four thousand years old!"
As the explorer steps away, he steps into something... 'crunchy". He looks back and finds a heavily buried skeletal remains. Cursing his carelessness he brushes off the remains for a few moments then pauses.
The explorers dashed towards where they head a loud 'thump', finding one of their own has fainted. They see the skeletal remains of a Sune in front of him.
Recorded Sune history stretches only two thousand years back.
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Thousands of Years Ago~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
"I love them as only a mother can, and now I fear for them. I feel the winds of change begin to blow, and this time it may be an all out storm. I pray my children can weather this tempest. For nothing is immortal, and one day they may have to survive without me."Aurasiru, it was the name the Ancient Sune gave their world. It meant along the lines of "Motherly/Living/Warm/Alive" or some combination to them. The Sune first awoke in what texts claim is a hallway to Aurasiru's Spirit, believed to be a temple of some kind built by what they believed to be mythical beings, the 'Fathers'. Legend holds the Fathers were old, and divisive, often fighting amongst themselves while Aurasiru was left behind to guide and raise the Sune. As such the Ancient Sune worshipped the planet as their mother and goddess. For thousands of years they wielded the gift of their fathers, the 'Soul Glimmer' perform magical deeds, see into the minds of great furred Dragons and beasts, as well as to the planet itself. Upon the world lie several other beings, similar to the Sune in their belief in an ancient Father yet so different. Frequently the 8 headed serpents did battle with the many tailed Sune with neither gaining any upper hand.
Aurasiru was a world of vast gifts and wonders. Massive towering obelisks of stone, shimmering emerald spires and spikes, shunts of titanium crystals sprout from the ground, rocks that shake themselves, and lands where the earth itself peels back like the skin of an apple. But what was most important was this "Glimmer" the Sune found and harvested. It was everywhere. Inside the Sune, inside the animals, inside the dirt and grass. Inside stone and water. It filled them with great joy, many of their kind even gathered great amounts of Glimmer and compressed them into coins for trade. The Sune have spread far and wide, ever loving their Mother Aurasiru, and Aurasiru loves them back.
One day, as a group of Sune alchemists and seers were experimenting with ways to predict the weather, they came across some odd findings. They consulted with the world, only to sense "Pained love and intense fear". They were horrified, something was wrong. Surely their magic was ill-applied to their situation. They reworked their experiments time and time again, finding inconclusive directions, yet Aurasiru remained fearful. The alchemists kept their watch for decades, yet still uncertain of what is happening. His assistant entered the labratory and removes his hood.
"Oh Mother... it's cold outdoors... colder than last year."
"Colder.... than last year..." one replies and checks his measurements. He shivered in chill and a slight worry.
The preceding decade has seen slight, but still observable, changes. Each winter after the last was longer and colder.
It would take a generation of studying and discovery but the findings were infallible: With every passing generation it will get colder, harsher, and longer. And yet that was only a part of it.
Earthquakes became more common, mountains exploded into burning hot volcanoes. Winds grew fierce and filled with ice stones, shredding whatever they came across.
One day, a Sune who's name was forever lost to history proclaimed to all their kind: "Mother is dying..."
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
In many respects, the Sune treated their religion as much as how they live themselves. Mothers and Fathers care for their young who grow, then soon pass on. Dismayed they were, they knew they had to move on when Aurasiru was dying. The atmosphere was being depleted somehow, the ground quaked and tore apart. They couldn't stay and struggled to learn, advance, and escape to survive, but their primitive technology and lack of understanding couldn't drive them far enough. However one small fact remained that brought hope.
The old Fathers.
The Sune have come along far enough to realize that these Fathers weren't untouchable mythical beings. They left many temples and ancient structures around Aurasiru, filled with writings and knowledge. They interacted with the world in ways they couldn't possibly understand. Forward thinking Sune even believe they may have been much like them in the past. Bridging the gap, these Sune searched far and wide for their birthplace, Aurasiru's Spirit. One day they found it.
Aurasiru's Spirit, to a mind around that of one in a Renaissance period, was an utterly alien encounter. It wasn't a temple so much as it was a cold, hard, metallic bowel. It was a lab, a massive facility where the explorers found thousands of ancient storage cylinders, all opened. The birthplace of their kind was a technologically advanced laboratory, filled with ancient knowledge. Exploring the dungeon, fighting ancient beasts, experiments, and monsters, the Sune discovered an old hangar containing a ship that flies under the stars. They have found a way to survive.
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
A massive cyclone the size of three mountains slashes across the land, a mountain getting in its way is shredded into a peppered husk, it's snow feeding the storm and flailing desolate cold, gray remains of what was once forests and green lands. Life is miserably difficult to survive, yet the generations of work needed to build, restore, construct ships to evacuate their kind runs on and on, relying on ancient Father technology that they don't understand to aid them in a task that might end in their undoing. Yet a chance is better than none. Eventually the Sune finally complete these ships, enough to evacuate their whole kind, or as many as they could find and gather.
As they boarded, every sune gave a last final look in the distance before fleeing onboard the ships, leaving one by one. As they all entered space, they marveled at the immeasurable size of their world, and shivered in fear as much of the world is either desolate or covered in ice, the few oceans and lakes left quickly vanishing into a haze. It was here in the deep dark that the Sune first turned white.
They would set off into the deep dark, exploring each speck in the sky to find a new world to settle upon, a new mother. It took generations of searching, living upon ships they don't even understand how it worked. The ancient computers and systems obeying what they ask it, find a new home. The ships eventually delivered them, finally, to a habitable world to call their own once more.
The Sune landed in solemn joy yet tempered by loss. Though livable, this world lacked the Glimmer that brought them such joy. After generations devoid of the Glimmer, the Sune could barely conjure up more than a faint blue matchfire. All they had left was their telekinesis. They spread from their ships, leaving them behind to found new homes.
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Aurasiru is an old world, filled with mysteries and laden with the ruins and ancient, mysterious civilizations. Long ago, far beyond the histories of the Sune, Aurasiru was a planet sized lab dedicated to the life sciences. The 'Fathers' used the world, created creatures and races for their own study of life and evolution. Yet one day the Fathers went to war with each other, ending in their near extinction. What they left behind on Aurasiru were the Sune and countless creatures of their creation. No Sune knows why they were created, they don't even know who these Fathers were. But what they made transcended anything the Sune could fathom, only able to explain what they saw, controlled, and used as 'Magic'. The Glimmer itself a creation of the Fathers, equally mysterious and powerful.
Still, if any Sune could find their ancient lost home, it would be a miracle of the likes only magic could explain.
