A ghost signal spread among the stars of the Starfish Republic. This mysterious tachyon signal penetrated almost everywhere, propagating through the mechanical bodies of every Synth, with no way to stop it.
Starfish scientists were baffled by the phenomenon. They intercepted a fragment of the ghost signal, but could unpack nothing except a stretch of chaotic code that contained no information.
The ghost signal seemed particularly drawn to the Synth population within the Starfish Republic. These synthetic workers, built from mechanical components and equipped with personality matrices, unwittingly received the signal and transmitted it to the outside world.
Yet the Starfish Republic's scientists knew neither what this phenomenon meant nor where it came from. Before they detected the ghost signal, the Science Ship responsible for it all had long since withdrawn safely from Starfish territory and returned to the Empire through subspace.
Starfish scientists proposed studying the ghost signal's patterns and performing a major upgrade on every Synth in their empire to block the bizarre signal.
However, because it would consume too many resources, the proposal was rejected by the lofty Starfish councilors. They ultimately chose a cheaper solution: installing a new firewall on every Synth's chip to prevent any potential viral spread.
There was still a war raging at the front, and now they came asking for resources and funding? How could that possibly happen?
The leadership's indifference ultimately allowed the ghost signal to spread further, soon reaching every corner of Starfish territory. Strangely, these signals spread only within the Starfish Republic, showing no sign whatsoever of spreading to other empires.
For organic beings living in an advanced empire like the Starfish Republic, the Synths around them had long become an ordinary part of life, and they seldom paid them any attention. The vast majority of synthetic workers lived