The Ancients had been living peacefully on the planet O’Ree-Jin for millennia. Despite all, stagnation brought a new way of thinking about the Ancients’ development as a species: the Path of wonder. The followers of the path of wonders exploited O’Ree-Jin’s essence without care for its consequence, and the Ancients tried as peacefully as possible to control that imprudent behavior.

The situation deteriorated as the more the traditional Ancients tried to halt the rampant misuse of the primal substance, the more challenging and transgressive the younger generations became. At some point, the conflict started being more about a fight for power and self-determinism than a philosophical debate about how to tackle knowledge acquisition and science. As tends to happen with those types of conflicts, violence followed. Aggression was something new to Ancient society. In that sense, most of the aggressive acts were akin to those of a child against a father, those that arise from the frustration of believing oneself in possession of truth and, at the same time, being incapable of imposing that truth. The followers of the path of wonder started disobeying publicly, rioting and destroying property.

This public disobedience was met with a non-aggressive response by the dominant Ancients, and that, in the end, allowed the escalation of aggressive behavior.

Year after year, decade after decade, positions got more and more radicalized. An extremist group started the acquisition of the substance through live tissue extraction. That meant snatching Ancients and extracting the essence directly from them. This aberrant behavior had its rewards, as it was demonstrated as the most efficient way of substance acquisition (1000 to 1, compared to normal unearthing and atmospherical capture). That method had a precondition, the more accumulated substance the tissue had, the more it could be extracted. This discovery ended up being the demise of the Ancient people. The practice became quite standard among the clandestine experimenters and the more extreme groups among the followers of the Path of wonder.

The practice was a capital fault in the eyes of the sages. The tradition stated that one must choose when to end its current physical form, and the process should entail returning the “life energy” (the essence) to the planetary ecosystem. That was the pre-condition of all mingling with the substance: in the end, it should always return to the typical flux of the ecosystem. The sages believed that by containing the essence of Ancients and processing it, they were effectively killing them forever. That was the tipping point for the sages that announced harsher measures and the creation of a prosecuting militia.

It all ended quickly after that announcement. It is not clear what happened, as the Ancient life as it has been described ended abruptly. Despite all, some pieces of information and recordings have been recovered from the debacle. Not long after the sages announcement of the recent measures, a terrorist attack took place during an assembly. The attack killed most of the sage caste to end their rulership and, it seems, gathering their accumulated essence. Imagine close to two thousand sages that had on their bodies 50% of the accumulated substance on Ancient society during millennia. Now imagine all that power, all that energy and all that knowledge destroyed in an instant. That act, the consumption of all those bodies for the gain of a few, is nowadays called The First Harvest.

That seems to have created a chain reaction on the planetary ecosystem. Some people believe that, as the sages said, they were connected to the planet, and the trauma was so immense that O’Ree-Jin’s reacted against it, scarred for eons to come. Other people believe that the sudden expulsion of all that energy in a contained space, and when entered in contact with the atmosphere, created the first of the energy storms that we see on the present day, and it created a feedback loop that made the whole planet “explode” on energy.

At some point in their history (not much before their extinction), a schism in their form of life happened. It seems there had always been divergent ways of thinking around the scriptures and the role of the Ancients as the dominant species of O’Ree-Jin. Most of the time, those dissonant voices didn’t get enough traction to create a significant debate among the Ancients. At some point, one of these voices gained enough following to challenge the dominant way of thinking. They summarized these beliefs with an apostate pamphlet named The Path of Wonder that contradicted basic precepts of the Ancients culture:

• One realizes his potential by means of consumption.
  
• One is able to consume because he is able to produce.
  
• One produces as much as he needs.
  
• One’s needs must be contained by his ability to grow.
  
• One shall grow through diligence.
  
• Diligence is learned by providing to the community.
  
• The community's ultimate goal should be to realize its potential.

Everything we do must rely on this spiral as the power of our people depends on the growth of said people.

This radical change of view proposed a more proactive way of thinking about systemic growth on O’Ree-Jin. It is mostly attributed to the feeling of some of the Ancients that they were wasting precious time and resources just by not acting on them.

The schism tends to be attributed to a natural flaw in the way the Ancients devised growth. The Ancients were capable of amazing biotechnological feats, the like of which has not been seen in other places of the galaxy. At the same time, these technological applications of the essence were always focused on expanding community boundaries, not as raw growth, but as how they related between themselves and the planet. As more applications for the substance were found, more impatient and wondrous the Ancients turned.

The followers of the Path of Wonder advocated for a conjoint effort, policing and regularizing the means of production and the populace's work effort. This could not abide by the majority of the Ancients as it would hinder people's autonomy and freedom. From an outsider’s point of view, it seems the Ancients found their own kind of decadence. Decadence in the Ancients society came through a visceral fear based on the idea of inaction waste: 'if we do not take advantage of the current opportunities, we will face later consequences.' Some portion of the populace started making exaggerated exploitation and use of the essence for growth, experimentation, and knowledge acquisition.

This was achieved mainly through the use of Harvesters. A sophisticated technology that extracted the essence from O’Ree-Jin’s bedrock, fracturing it in the process. This began to impact the environment creating residuals and subproducts of the substance treatment that were quite dangerous to the ecosystem. Moreover, these phenomena created other problems akin to the ones inherent to globalization and worker exploitation. These phenomena were entirely novel in Ancients society.

At some point, the sages tried to bring the debate to the public, expand the assembly, incorporate new participants, and reach a mutual consensus between these two ways of thinking. The popularity of the sages helped sway public opinion their way. Most of the activity of the Path of wonder became clandestine as it became somewhat shameful.

The crisis was averted for the moment...

Little is known about the civilization that dwelled on O’Ree-Jin (from now on Ancients). Despite all, two things are sure: they were a very advanced civilization in terms of technology and ethics; at the same time, they lacked any kind of space-faring technology and, as so, they lived confined to O’Ree-Jin. These two things can be explained if we take a look at what has been recovered from their archives.

O’Ree-Jin is itself small, but even so, the Ancients inhabited a little portion of one of the major continents. The Ancients constrained their expansion by choice, as they had a seemingly unending life, and they kept tight control over procreation.

That is strange if we account for the vast amount of uninhabited space and unexploited resources around them. That includes the protean substance known as ‘the essence’ that everyone craves now. This way of life is explained by their culture and moral beliefs. All these scriptures relied on a basic circular logic:

i) One affects the environment through consumption.
ii) One can consume because he/she can produce.
iii) One produces as much as he needs.
iv) One’s needs must be contained by his/her patience.
v) One must nurture patience through diligence.
vi) Diligence is learned by providing to the community.
vii) The community is the ultimate protector of the environment.

Everything we do must rely on this circle as the power of O’Ree-Jin works in circles.

Around these beliefs emerged basic precepts of how life was organized:
They put extreme effort into educating on a systemic understanding of life and nature. All things are related to each other and affect each other. Self-reliance and independence were a significant quality, but society and the community must allow for it.

They understood life as an extension of unity (dependability among self-organizing organisms).
As those ideas hold true, one should strive to live its life unattached to need and desire, as excesses may corrupt unity and destroy the systemic balance.
The final conclusion is that one must strive to achieve his/her own desires, but that should never come at the cost of the desires of others or the community as a whole.

The Ancients hold these beliefs as a moral imperative. That is why they grew so slowly until total stagnation at some point in their history. Although the Ancients were quite an advanced and free society, not having a communal goal more sophisticated than the respect for each other and the ecosystem hindered their apparent advancement and growth. In truth, they were primarily focused on self-knowledge and acquiring a deeper understanding of their community and their place in nature.

To order the cultural and societal affairs of the population, a caste of Sages functioned as an oligarchy. The Sages were mostly members of the earlier generations that formed the Ancient species. Some of them had thousands of years of life and experience. The caste of Sages that functioned as an assembly.

The caste was very static, and only when a seat was vacated was another sage able to occupy it. A seat got vacated when a Sage got tired of his/her current life form. When a sage wanted to “return to the planet,” he/she started a slow process of essence extraction from the body, that got re-insufflated into earth pockets rich with the substance. The Sages, as the most longevous people on that planet, were vast containers of the essence that structured life on O’Ree-Jin.

Most of the time, the Sages didn’t get involved in the decision-making process of most mundane things. In truth, it seems that most of the day to day life was ordained just by custom and the following of the scriptures. Despite all, the sages were admired as those with a better understanding of the scriptures. The Sages understood as no other intimate relationship between the planet as a system, and the essence as the lifeblood of that planet and all the interconnected organisms in it. In that regard, the Sages directed the expansion and evolution of their civilization.

That changed during the last centuries of the life of the Ancient species...

Alith comes from a ruthless, authoritarian and fundamentalist empire. Their people were for centuries the prey of a stronger species that dominated the surface of their planet, while they hid and dwelled in caves connected through an underground galleries system. The giant creatures that inhabited the surface were worshipped, feared, and hated as punishing gods by the underground people.

This constant dread for their lives was used by a group of individuals that, while trying to give meaning and logic to these harsh living conditions, also found a way to start accumulating power over the community by establishing strict rules of conduct and a strong religious hierarchy.

The dogmatic following of these rules created a new way of life known as the Faith.

Their technology started focusing on learning how these ‘Gods’ bodies worked, and to replicate their capabilities to achieve perfection. They experimented with highly complex biomechanical implants to improve the bodies of their brave explorers, who were sent to the surface looking for resources and knowledge about these giant creatures.

After many centuries, their technology eventually got good enough to finally face in battle their Gods. This started a war that lasted for decades and ended with the conquest of the surface. This created a massive shift in the prey mentality of the underground people. They had become the predators now, and nobody was going to subject them anymore. That also changed their way of government and religion. That is known as the first foundation, and the religion converted to a new system with two main branches: Faith and War.

• The Faith branch was the ancient way, and it was concerned with the day to day ethics and morals of the peoples.
  
• The War branch of the church was born as the war against the Gods neared its end, and it concerned itself with militaristic development, social discipline, and sciences.

Guided by a strong inferiority complex due to their past as a prey species, the next centuries were focused on ‘preventive conquering’. They underwent the creation of a space fleet and started the systematic subjugation of less developed civilizations to consolidate their new mentality. They became 'Gods' among the stars.

With expansion came colonization and impregnation from other cultures and societies. In the long run, this created religious tension among the church as progressive individuals started to appreciate the diversity inherent to other species and forms of religion. These produced aberrant behaviors among pockets of populations that encompassed cross-species sexual intercourse, faith conversion, and full-fledged heretical movements.

After a civil war engulfed part of the empire, and to avoid heresy, criticism, and opposition inside their society, the Imperium became more authoritarian and less tolerant. As the Imperium conquered its self-doubt, the second foundation took place with the creation of the branch of Truth. That branch was concerned with dogma and belief. This foundation establishes the current state of political and religious affairs for the Imperium. The Imperium is managed by the church branches known as Faith, War, and Truth, as a Triarchy of power.

The branch of Truth destroyed all recorded history and banned the possibility of keeping records of any past fact. The only holders of the truth were the Triarch of Truth and the Truthsayers. A Truthsayer was the one that established fact (or rewritten fact), and as so, the Truthsayers ended up functioning as a policing force among the administration of the Imperial Triarchy. This allowed them to justify any new conquest and aggression, by claiming a ‘holy right’ and a ‘divine quest’ for the ‘universal truth’. Despite all, nowadays, the primary function of a Truthsayers is that of preventing, investigating, and purging heresy wherever it may spawn. To achieve that purpose, the Truthsayers would surgically remove leaders, sabotage whole planets, and target individuals deemed dangerous. Those are known as truth-seeking protocols.

In this sad, obscure, and blind period was when O’Ree-Jin was first discovered by this civilization. The Imperium was the first to find the ruins and the power of the essence. Taking advantage of that, they rewrote their history again, claiming that the planet was their true origin and their lost paradise, so they had the right to inherit and exploit it. When the triarchy achieves full dominance over the planet, the final foundation will take place.

As other civilizations reached the planet and became engaged in the process of extraction, the truth propagated by the Truthsayers began to crumble. As the conflict was not an option (due to mutually assured destruction), the branch of Truth quarantined all information on O’Ree-Jin. The only available personnel on orbit around the planet are personnel from the Truth branch of the church. They are deemed the only ones strong enough to mingle with other civilizations' falsehoods and with the events that take place on the planet’s surface.

As so, the Truthsayers dispatched to O’Ree-Jin are specialized in The Harvest ceremony. They are allowed to work with other civilizations... at least for the moment, as they gather enough truth about them.

In a remote corner of the Universe, in a time beyond history, there is a place unlike any other.
This place is known for many as O’Ree-Jin.

• O’Ree-Jin contains the remains of one of the most advanced civilizations that have inhabited the Universe, and probably the first one to do it.
  
• This ancient planet is inaccessible for most of its existence due to immensely powerful currents of energy that coalesce on the outer layers of the atmosphere, creating the most astounding vista in the galaxy.
  
• Its orbit is a melting pot of vessels, radars, satellites and space stations from different eras, brought there by the greatest galactic civilizations across the Universe, waiting patiently for the planet’s atmosphere to open (not unlike a sort of cold war).

O’Ree-Jin is peculiar for all those reasons but, most of all, it has become a mythical peregrination place because its cortex exudes the most precious substance of the cosmos. Some call this protean substance the blood of God, others call it the essence of life, and some even say that it is the very fabric of reality in its primal form. No matter how they call it, every one of the orbiting civilizations wants to amass it, process it, and build whatever their imagination dims possible. This substance grants elongated life, benign, and powerful mutations. It may replicate any form, be it organic or synthetic. All in all, it is the clay from what everything else is built.

As tends to happen with all important things in existence, the acquisition of this substance comes associated with a most dangerous path. The planet is a zealous protector of this substance, but it may reward those foolish enough to try to brave it. The planet opens itself at undetermined intervals and for an undetermined time span. These little windows of time become hectic with activity as bands of warriors and adventurers lunge themselves to the planet’s surface and battle to the death to attain as much of the substance as possible. These warriors are among the most exalted heroes of each civilization. They build short-lived alliances between them and become agents of death and chaos as they attain the substance for themselves, becoming more powerful than they ever expected to be.

The substance extraction is peculiar as the best way to conserve it is through living tissue. The warriors, or Breachers as they call themselves, become a living canister full of the all empowering substance. Along O’Ree-Jin’s surface, Breachers find vestiges of essence extraction machinery (EEM) still functioning, becoming this the main focus of their harvesting.
But a faster, more brutal, and nastier way of substance gathering is harvesting the bodies of opposing Breachers. That has been happening for centuries, and that will be the way for centuries to come. This ritualistic activity has been named as The Harvest.

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