Chapter 6 Learning From Yourself 1

  Rebuilding an empire stretching millions of lightyears wasn’t an easy task. Some entire solar systems had to be managed by as little as 90 000 Dominians to make up for their depleted population of less than 70 billion.

  The purges were paused as each Dominian survivor became valued more than entire planets. A Dominian lifespan lasted for around 230-500 years depending on how often the specimen traveled and went into a space induced hibernation. This also meant that Dominian breeding cycles could span from a few decades to an entire century. The species breeding program was now even more strict as creating offspring was vital for the civilizations survival.

  But due to their technology taking up such an incredibly large amount of natural resources, their expansion couldn’t be stopped. Usually the Dominian empire moved in a big cluster of galaxies spanning lightyears across. Now, it was possible for two Dominian ships on opposite sides of the empire to reach each other in less than a lifetime. This was done so that everyone could help anyone in the empire along with easier communication.

  12 000 years after the second extinction and by now their population had reached its first hundred billion again. Purges were slowly reinstated to keep the genepool stable and pure.

  Earth

  By now, over 410 thousand years had passed since the nukes on earth fell. Approximately 140 thousand years prior, the Dominians had left the planet completely. It wasn’t seen as anything special anymore. Like a bird leaving its nest. It wasn’t sacred, it was simply a stepping stone.

  But while the empire left, the species would still remain in small pockets. Religious groups would remain on the ancient planet, considering leaving their origin as blasphemous as weakness and a sign of ungratefulness.

  While the Dominians had evolved little to nothing after abandoning earth due to their genetic makeup already being perfect for their constant conquest, the old humanity still had to adapt and evolve to keep up with earths and their own ecosystem which by now had become a barren and dried out planet.

  After a few months of researching a new planet, thirty Dominian soldiers prepare to go down and scout the planet. The scientists had already deemed it unfit for life so none of the scouts were armed. But once the colony had been established something strange happened. A Dominian scout had seemingly discovered life. A small bipedal animal with four legs and a long tail, it didn’t possess any fur, but instead a thick bony layer of protection plated onto its back. As if the discovery of life on an almost uninhabitable planet wasn’t strange enough, the scientists found that this alien creature shared a common ancestor with a Dominian. This species did in fact possess DNA 20% identical to your own.

  It was horrifying at first. Due to so much data being lost after the conflict with the Ti-Fe, the Dominians were unable to track if this was a planet they once had conquered. Perhaps a group of early human pets had been left on the planet, perhaps it had been transferred by another intelligent species

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  But it was never expected that the planet they were now standing on… Was Earth.

  After only spending a few months on this new strange planet, other signs of life began to appear. From cave paintings to old ruins and bones. It was reported by the scouts that this planet felt off, and they would soon find out why.

  Two years after arrival, a Dominian corpse is found a few miles away from their outpost. Or at least it looked Dominian, except that its clothes and equipment seemed to age back hundreds of thousands of years.

  These were the types of tools they would have found on an agricultural underdeveloped world, not on a species that could redirect the movement of a planet. A myriad of tests were conducted on the corpse and it turned out that it was a Dominian on a physical level.

  Its muscle density matched that of an above average Dominian, the skeleton consisted of a hard carbon material and the tissue had signs of multiple instances of healing. However, the specimen lacked the small holes in its skin that modern Dominians had to aid their space movement. The scientists didn’t know what to make out of the discovery, it looked like they had found a time capsule of their pre-industrial world.

  And in some regards that would turn out to be true.

  On the coldest day of the year; the Dominian control center lost communications with an outpost on the strange world. Already knowing that this planet could be extremely unpredictable, an entire battalion of 40 Dominians were sent to check up on the facility.

  Once arriving at the outpost, the scouts immediately realized that this was something more than a power outage. There were no signs of corpses or combat but the area still looked abandoned. None of the 10 Dominians stationed there could be found and the team decided to return in case whatever caused it would come back.

  However these scouts would soon experience for themselves what their fallen comrades had encountered.

  We were on our way to leave orbit. Everything was set up and we were just waiting for B4-Mercury to scan for space debris. But as he was on his way to start the ships engines, a spear like projectile flew through the air and hit him in the back. The weapon barely did any significant damage to him as the wound had already begun to clot and heal. We pulled him back into the ship and prepared for combat.

  The head of command had prepared us for potential enemy engagement so we were able to take more than our ceremonial daggers with us.

  Suddenly we hear a hellish scream echo through the ground as Dominian like barbarians charge at us. At first we thought it was the group sent here to maintain the outpost but once we were hit with another painful barrage of projectiles, we realized that this wasn’t our lost crew.

  They looked Dominian but acted nothing like it and once they came closer we could see that these strange creatures lacked any sort of water propelling holes in their skin.

  While their weapons barely caused any damage to us, we quickly readjusted once they got their hands on us. This species didn’t only possess the physical attributes of a Dominian, but the strength and durability to match.

  B4-MM6 was disposed of like an animal as her arms were ripped from her body.

  At the time I thought that this must have been a group of Ti-Fe that had survived on this planet for thousands of generations but our records always stated that Ti-Fe were made out of metal, not flesh.

  Only 9 of us left that place alive as the rest were ripped apart by this strange alien species' extreme strength.’

  Casualties: 31

  Date: 87/98/4.