Solar Storms

"And the serpent said unto the woman, "Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." - Genesis 3: 4-5 (KJV)

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Half a million years ago, humanity learned the secret of fire. Setting themselves apart from the animals that surrounded them, mankind took its first step out from under the oppressive thumb of Nature.

Seventy thousand years ago, humanity learned to speak. Though they were able to communicate before, no longer were they limited to nasal grunts and clicks of the tongue. From Africa, they conquered the Earth.

Twelve thousand years ago, humanity learned to harvest. Where once there were thousands, in time, there would be billions.

Six thousand years ago, humanity learned to write. Where once the knowledge of previous generations had to be endlessly repeated, it could now be seen for all eternity.

Not so many decades past, humanity unlocked the power within the atom. For good, and for ill, even the most ignorant amongst the masses could not help but respect the smallest of things.

At the dawn of the 21st century, those who would be gods worked to harness the power of the stars themselves, sought the Fountain of Youth, and began constructing likenesses in their own cognitive image - artificial sapience.

And what if these last - the sons of Man - are found to have a soul?

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The story began sometime in what was then known as the 23rd century. In her ceaseless quest for knowledge, humanity's theories suggested that its picture of knowledge was complete. It was granted that not everything was known - but it appeared that, for the first time, everything could be understood. In triumph over its own ignorance, there would be no more theories - physics had been 'solved'. No more questions that needed asking.

Except, perhaps, for the inevitable.

"Are we sure?"

After countless experiments would suggest that there was nothing more to be found - an abyss from which nothing more could be learned, mankind chose to look into that void anyway.

And found something. The final fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

The mobius patterns seemed to defy the second law of thermodynamics, offering no explanation for their capabilities. Most were small, and fragile, but they were something else.

They were life.

It was decades before humans became aware of just what they had done. Before their intervention, the multiverses... megaverses... whatever, were happily colliding away, self-immolating, only to be reborn anew, with no such thing as a memory of their previous state.

But then humans brought a piece of this immolation, this rebirth, into their own realm, and began to bend it to their will. A delicate flicker that threatened to become an inferno that would sweep the Galaxy, and beyond, in a massive storm.

Such presumption of divinity did not go unnoticed in the infinite expanse. Forces numerous, ancient and mighty arrayed themselves against the nascent power, seeking to end the people of Sol and claim humanity's unique discoveries for their own.

Because humans were not the First to ask questions of the void.

Earth was lost, and its Sun would no longer grace the Milky Way with its light. Scattered across the Universe in a great diaspora, the flames of human civilization were reduced to embers.

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Ten thousand years later, the wounds between mankind and its genocidal enemies have begun to heal. During their truce, new forces have emerged, some with violence, others with tranquility. As with all truly mighty powers, they may choose sides, but, ultimately, this is a fleeting moment - they are their own side. It is a thin peace, for the embers of violence glow brightly, for the stake is existence itself, and the prize is apotheosis.

And God himself would have a say in the matter.