The Visitation

I was there when your human world tore open, so long ago. I don't remember a lot of it, if I am honest for once in my life. It was like my world had been a paper bag made of static, and suddenly it was torn open from every angle dropping me onto some jungle world in the middle of nowhere. Being able to "see" as you do was already enough of a shock for one who had never been subject to the principles of light and it's reflections. Being able to feel, or touch, or any of the things you humans do threw senses that hadn't existed moments before into overdrive.

It is good that there were no humans around, that sort of revelation would send anyone into a frenzy of overstimulation in a world that we had no idea how much we could influence, as was the case with many of my kin. You should see what some of them did when they first ended up here.

As mankind wove its empire amongst the stars through the use of the Alchemy Engine, humanity failed to realize that the tool that had granted them so much power was slowly extracting a price everywhere they went.

Eventually, that debt would be called, and when it did, humanity became acquainted with a world unfamiliar to them. The very fabric of reality bent in on itself, collapsing and tearing as it twisted infinitely. The laws of the universe: gravity, electricity, thermodynamics, entropy, and many more, were turned on their heads, or multiplied, or replaced, not to mention simply vanishing completely. Nothing could be relied upon, even the reality of the possibility of walking down the street in a straight line and ending up in the place you thought you would.

Alongside the complete breakdown of interstellar networks due to the following failure of the Alchemy Engine, there was nothing left untouched by the Visitation. The whole galaxy sent into the dark and choking on it's own weight. Starvation, wars, regression. All were hallmarks of the Silent Era that followed.

It's taken centuries for the effects of the Visitation to subside, and only about one more since some sense of normalcy was reestablished. Trade routes reestablished amongst the now regional powers, societies that span the stars, and of course the most common hallmark of humanity; armed conflict for reasons other than survival.