An unnamed stellar system, 127 light-years from the collision zone of the twin black holes AGBH-01 and AGBH-02.
It was a binary star system, with two young, vibrant blue giants of similar mass serving as its primary stars.
More than twenty planets of various sizes orbited these two blue giants.
Without question, this stellar system was far larger than the Solar System.
Its favorable location and structure made it one of the best "viewing spots" for this fireworks display in the Andromeda Galaxy.
The Human Fleet's ultimate destination was this young stellar system.
Naturally, such a "grand event" would attract more than just human civilization.
Hundreds of years earlier, before the Human Fleet had even discovered this stellar system, another civilization had already beaten them to it and claimed this prime location.
Within the unnamed stellar system lay a terrestrial planet rich in water.
Warships that looked like heaps of countless clods of mud continuously took off and landed on this swamp-covered planet.
"Layer upon layer" of intelligent creatures crawled slowly through the swamps.
Yes, layer upon layer.
Layers of tissue resembling fleshy sacs were stacked irregularly, forming oddly shaped intelligent creatures of varying sizes.
Individual bodies ranged from 0.5 to 2.5 meters in size.
They extended long tendrils from within their bodies and spread murky, muddy water evenly over their surfaces. This seemed to provide them with considerable comfort.
They called themselves the Alcott Civilization, and their homeworld was a swamp planet.
Their original form had been a gigantic fungal organism on a swamp planet: [Alcott].
It had been an enormous fungus that covered more than a thousand square kilometers of the surface.
After a long process of evolution, this enormous fungus successfully developed a neural network and sensory systems, completing a transformation of its life-form-it divided and