Overtaken - a BFB/II2 fanfic (very slow updates)

~~ [Interlude 2] Goikian History, excerpt 2: The Great Sgr A* Blueshift ~~

(This is an excerpt taken from chapter 75 of the history textbook "Goikian History," written by famous historian and drama enthusiast El-Em.)

History is an important subject. "Those who cannot learn history are doomed to repeat it." An age-old adage that has proven itself time to time again. Eventually, we humans finally learned this and make sure to pass on our knowledge in the form of teaching. Apart from the Convalesce Catastrophe (see chapter 39), one of the most important events in human history - and the history of several other alien races as well - is the Great Sagittarius A* Blueshift.

Sagittarius A* (abbreviated Sgr A*) is a supermassive black hole located in the center of the Goiky Way galaxy; the galaxy in which humans, and many other sentient species, reside on various planets and space stations. Non-humans had been living throughout the galaxy far longer than humans had been, and a safe distance around the black hole had long since been established (several thousand light-years).

The year this happened was 5085 AD, in human terms. It was a tumultuous time; despite there having been sentient life spread through the galaxy for thousands and thousands of years at this time, there was still no one united government, organization, or party to oversee it all. Thus, there were wars. Countless wars, many of which humans were involved in, whether they were the cause of them or not.

First reports of Sgr A* acting oddly came from some Volus scouts. One of the nearest planets to the black hole - a dull, lifeless rock that barely qualified as a planet - had mysteriously disappeared, they reported. There was barely any trace of it left.

Not much attention was paid to these reports at first, because there were wars going on. But suddenly, another planet vanished. This one, unfortunately, was full of life. Just outside the safe distance from Sgr A*,  Tlep was the new home to a struggling species of arachnids (the Agclusidae) who had very specific conditions that needed to be met for survival. Fortunately for them, Tlep had exactly the conditions they needed.

Approximately a month after the Volus scouts made their report, the space station nearest to Tlep received a transmission from the Agclusidae. Although the Agclusidae had been struggling to survive before they settled on Tlep, they were extremely technologically advanced; possibly more so than any other known species. They had learned how to propel radio waves faster than the speed of light. This was the only reason their transmission had even been able to get to the space station; the message it contained told how the Agclusidae learned that their planet was being drawn in by Sgr A*, but too late for anything else to escape the gravitational pull. It was a last, desperate plea for help from a doomed species who knew they were about to go extinct with nobody being able to help them.

By the time the members of this space station received and read the transmission, the Agclusidae were already long gone. Using the technology they had, they observed the space where Tlep once was and confirmed that it was, indeed, missing. Knowing that the Agclusidae was a peace-loving species, and knowing that they were quite close to where Tlep used to be, everyone on the station trusted the information and quickly fled as far away from the black hole as they could.

Sgr A* was growing. And it was growing quite rapidly. Which meant that the previously safe distance was no longer safe, and the distance you had to be from Sgr A* before being unable to escape was increasing.

[History book author's note 1: the term "blueshift" does not actually describe what was happening to Sgr A*; it is a different thing entirely. Nobody is sure why this event is referred to that way, but the best theory is that someone accidentally incorrectly used the term "blueshift" and it just stuck.]

The news of the poor Agclusidae's demise spread rapidly. With every planet it passed through, confusion and panic reigned supreme, which did not help the wars out any. But one unexpected side effect of the news was that it actually eventually stopped the wars, as more and more sides realized that there was a galaxy-threatening crisis on their hands and that fighting would only make the problem impossible to solve. So, after several ceasefires and hastily signed peace treaties, everybody who was suited to help solve the Sgr A* Blueshift banded together and gained a common enemy: nature itself.

The first step that was taken was to help evacuate the planets closest to the black hole. But this was a messy process, as planets are quite massive and quite hard to evacuate. And the ones close enough to Sgr A* to be threatened were far enough apart that it made communication difficult. In the end, not everybody could be saved. Billions and billions of creatures died, but with the initial exception of the Agclusidae, none went extinct.

It was months before any sort of proper organization was actually reached. A brave human by the name of Kaykay offered a sort of council to be in charge of everything; one that would have five representatives of each sentient species in it so that everybody was represented. This idea latched itself onto others surprisingly fast, and it took longer to pull together a rudimentary first council than Kaykay originally hoped, but after some time, it was done.

Things began to change for the better. The Council Of All (or COA, as everyone soon started to call it) rapidly began to instill order in, well, everything. Entire planets were still impossible to be saved, but with better communication between nearby space stations and fleets of ships, more and more people were gradually saved before the doomed planets were inevitably caught in Sgr A*'s increasing gravitational pull. With some form of order restored, the COA was finally equipped to start tackling the problem of actually finding a way to stop Sgr A* from growing.

Then, inexplicably, the black hole started to grow faster.

From this point, many records of the events afterwards were lost due to the complete and utter chaos that followed, including the actual method of how Sgr A* was stabilized. As it was, we were lucky to salvage everything that we currently know when history books were first being written about the Blueshift.

[History book author's note 2: even if records of the solution to the problem that the scientists of the time used survived, I doubt I would have been able to understand it, as my passion is history, not science. Nevertheless, I am still curious as to what it was, and if it had survived, it would be good protection against Sgr A* if should ever begin to mysteriously grow again. I should also note that the reason the black hole started to grow was also lost to time.]

And thus, the lives of the remaining species who lived in the galaxy were saved. Sgr A* stayed at its expanded size, but stopped growing. Many lives were lost, but countless more were saved, and the COA became a permanent staple. The previously hastily signed peace treaties were reviewed and changed to be more stable and promising, and since then, the Goiky Way galaxy has had an extremely long era of peace.

One final note: the human race also declared the year of Blueshift as year zero of a new era in human terms, naming this new age "AB" for "After Blueshift." (As of when this history book is published, it is 2020 AB, exactly 5000 years since the Volus rescued the remains of the human race from the dying earth.)

haha lore building go brrr

again this has no actual plot relevance to the rest of Overtaken but there haven't been many chances for me to build the background world otherwise