When, two hundred thousand years after the time of Hama Druz, the storm of extragalactic war at last blew itself out, we decided enough was enough. We had always worked covertly, tweaking history here and there – as I had meddled in the destiny of the Exultants. Now it was different. In this moment of human fragmentation and weakness, we emerged from the shadows, and began to act.
We established a new centralising government called the Commonwealth. Slowly – so slowly most mayflies lived and died without ever seeing what we were doing – we strove to challenge time, to dam the flow of history. To gain control, at last.
And we attempted a deeper unity, a linking of minds called the Transcendence. This superhuman entity would envelop all of mankind in its joyous unity, reaching even deep into the past to redeem the benighted lives that had gone before. But the gulf between man and god proved too wide to bridge.
Half a million years after mankind first left Earth, the Transcendence proved the high water mark of humanity’s dreams.
When it fell our ultimate enemies closed in.
-Resplendent, "Between Worlds"