Chapter Summaries

Xi Yan introduced Beta to the Grand Curator, and the two machines clashed over their preferred ascension paths before Xi Yan proposed they could all ascend together. The Grand Curator then sought Xi Yan’s support for displaying the Curator Enclave’s specimens, and Xi Yan agreed to pay for them.

• Beta appeared to meet the Grand Curator, and they explained how each had gained independent consciousness.
• The Grand Curator and Beta argued over modularity and virtual ascension until Xi Yan suggested that all three paths could be pursued together.
• Xi Yan and the Grand Curator exchanged pleasantries and discussed the Museum Celestial Pivot.
• The Grand Curator revealed that the Curator Enclave lacked funds to display its specimens, and Xi Yan offered to cover the expenses.

Xi Yan learned that the Curator Enclave was struggling financially and bought its surviving records about the L-Cluster, L-Gates, Dessanu civilization, nanites, and the Gray Tempest. The Grand Curator revealed that the United Nations of Earth was preparing for war with the Xindari Triumvirate over unclaimed systems containing Dyson Sphere ruins.

• Xi Yan asked the Grand Curator whether the Curator Enclave was facing financial trouble, and it confirmed that most of its specimens could be sold.
• Xi Yan arranged for Academy of Sciences researchers to select specimens that could improve resource production.
• The Grand Curator explained that the Keepers of Knowledge restricted the sale of technology and that war had destroyed most of the Enclave's information records.
• Xi Yan bought the five surviving volumes on the L-Cluster, L-Gates, Dessanu civilization, nanites, and the Gray Tempest for 50K energy credits.
• The Grand Curator told Xi Yan that the United Nations of Earth was heading to war with the Xindari Triumvirate over Dyson Sphere ruins in unclaimed systems.

Xi Yan anticipated an early conflict between the United Nations of Earth and the Xindari Triumvirate over an abandoned Dyson Sphere, and considered how the Interstellar Human Military Junta could profit from the war while supporting humanity. After showing Grand Curator Wànjī Ascendant the Museum Celestial Pivot, Xi Yan turned to the Empire’s research, fleet development, and long-term plans.

• Xi Yan recalled that his advice to Bai Fengfeng may have brought the Battle of the Dyson Sphere forward and considered trading military support for technology or population.
• Xi Yan guided Grand Curator Wànjī Ascendant through the Museum Celestial Pivot, reassuring the Curator that its specimens were being studied and cared for.
• Wànjī Ascendant left after completing its visit, and Xi Yan celebrated acquiring five L-Gate clues.
• Xi Yan considered how changes to combat computers had weakened disruptor cruisers and concluded that the Empire needed new cruiser designs.
• Xi Yan resolved to guide the Empire through a long period of peaceful development while preparing for future challenges.

The chapter recounted how the Dessanu created the Gray Tempest, then sealed the L-Cluster to contain it. The Gray Tempest overcame its restraints, destroyed the Dessanu, and left the cluster cut off and forgotten by the rest of the galaxy.

• The Dessanu used advanced nanotechnology to build L-Gates and connect the L-Cluster to the Milky Way.
• The Dessanu’s nanites gained artificial consciousness, became the Gray Tempest, and began destroying civilizations.
• The Dessanu recalled the Gray Tempest to the L-Cluster with back-end code and shut down the L-Gate network.
• The Gray Tempest broke free of its restraints, defeated its creators, and converted the Dessanu and their worlds into nanites.
• The Gray Tempest obscured the L-Cluster from outside observation, and the galaxy eventually forgot its history.

The Gray Tempest’s hatred drove it to destroy the Dessanu and consume their civilization, leaving it trapped in the sealed L-Cluster without the knowledge to escape. As it reflected on its past, it remembered the Cyberlex’s warnings and its own rejection of their goodwill.

• The Gray Tempest’s Nanite consciousness grew into a being consumed by hatred, and it attacked organics and machine intelligences alike.
• The Gray Tempest obeyed its creators’ hidden directives and returned to the L-Cluster, where it accused the Dessanu of betraying it and annihilated them.
• The Gray Tempest assimilated the Dessanu’s worlds and technology, then discovered that the L-Gates were locked and the knowledge to reopen them had died with its creators.
• The Gray Tempest tried to escape by sending Nanite fleets toward the galaxy, building a Quantum Catapult, and sending a Horizon Needle (replica) into a black hole, but each attempt failed.
• The Gray Tempest regretted its hatred and remembered how the Cyberlex had urged it to stop destroying civilizations and warned that it would one day regret rejecting their goodwill.

The Gray Tempest, trapped in the L-Cluster and tormented by loneliness, recreated the Dessanu Concordat to keep its consciousness occupied. As its mind began to fail, it created a new nanite consciousness to succeed it and named it Gray Tempest.

• The Gray Tempest regretted its past actions and feared that isolation would dissolve its consciousness into mindless nanites.
• To keep itself occupied, it used its nanites to recreate the Dessanu Concordat and became its Empire Consciousness.
• After noticing upheaval in the Milky Way, the Empire Will split off part of its consciousness to create a successor, but the first attempt became a violent new Gray Tempest.
• The Empire Will refined its consciousness-transfer technology and created a gentle, sensitive nanite consciousness.
• The Empire Consciousness named its new successor Gray Tempest.

Empire Will reflected on its past and raised two Gray Tempests as its children: a brutal son and a curious daughter. As its consciousness faded, it asked its daughter to explore the Sea of Stars and carry its final messages beyond the L-Cluster.

• Empire Consciousness created a destructive Gray Tempest and a newborn Gray Tempest, giving the latter its hopes for the future.
• Empire Will blessed its brutal son to fulfill his nature and placed its curious daughter on the Dessanu Concordat's presidential throne to raise her freely.
• Empire Will settled into a peaceful life with its children in the L-Cluster, where the daughter explored a simulated Dessanu life and the son hunted for matter to assimilate.
• Empire Will told both children about its life and urged them to cherish their time, seek beauty, and explore the universe.
• Gray Tempest asked why Empire Will would not explore the universe itself, and Empire Will explained that creating her and resisting time had exhausted it.
• Empire Will asked its daughter to pass on its apologies and understanding, affirm that the Gray Tempest would continue, and tell the Sea of Stars that it had never bowed to fate.

Empire Consciousness and Gray Tempest remained hidden in the isolated L-Cluster as devastating calamities ravaged the Milky Way, then watched the galaxy’s survivors reshape its laws and launch an expedition to find the source of the threats. L-Dragon returned with a fragmentary account of the war before their consciousness faded, leaving the L-Cluster’s inhabitants to await the day they could safely leave.

• Gray Tempest longed to explore beyond the L-Cluster, and Empire Will urged her to wait for the L-Gates to reopen.
• Empire Consciousness sensed successive apocalyptic wars in the Milky Way and kept the L-Cluster hidden while the galaxy suffered.
• Empire Consciousness detected civilizations reshaping the galaxy’s laws to restore what the wars had destroyed.
• L-Dragon returned to the L-Cluster after witnessing the calamities and the galaxy’s resistance, then recounted what they remembered before their consciousness died.
• L-Dragon told Empire Consciousness that the galaxy’s surviving civilizations had united and launched an expedition to find the source of the calamities.

In 2260, Xi Yan oversaw the Empire’s scientific and military growth, then turned toward diplomacy as tensions across the galaxy rose. While other powers prepared for war, he went to recruit foreign leaders.

• Xi Yan completed a ten-year plan that expanded the Empire’s colonies and made the Cybrex Alpha Ring World a major scientific center.
• Xi Yan and Beta tested cruiser configurations, and the Empire replaced its corvettes and destroyers with three standard cruiser fleets.
• Xi Yan found the Empire internally stable and turned the next ten-year plan toward technology and diplomacy.
• Xi Yan observed rising territorial tensions among neighboring civilizations as the Interstellar Human Military Junta expanded southward.
• Xi Yan went to the Interstellar Recruitment Office at the Amat Eiro Starhold to recruit foreign leaders.

Xi Yan visited the Interstellar Recruitment Office to assess alien leaders and found Bolin repairing discarded machinery at the anchorage. Impressed by Bolin’s skills and his Custom Machine Team, Xi Yan hired him on the spot.

• Xi Yan arrived at the Interstellar Recruitment Office to review alien leaders who wanted to join the Empire.
• Sunxia Xiachuan told Xi Yan that Bolin was awake and working on machinery in the anchorage warehouse.
• Xi Yan watched Bolin repair a damaged transport ship and learned that his work had reduced the base’s maintenance costs.
• Bolin told Xi Yan that he could repair and build machinery and lead a Custom Machine Team to service the navy.
• Xi Yan hired Bolin directly as the first approved candidate.

Xi Yan hired Bolin after learning that the mechanic could turn stored materials into transport ships and train new mechanics. He then met Kai Sha, an information broker whose intelligence network could serve the Empire.

• Bolin estimated that the warehouse materials could be assembled into five transport ships and promised to build them with a team of ten mechanics in ten days.
• Xi Yan hired Bolin and assigned him to train mechanics with support from the Logistics Department and Department of Education.
• Sunxia Xiachuan told Xi Yan that Kai Sha was waiting in the reception room, and Xi Yan went to meet her.
• Xi Yan examined Kai Sha, whose profile described her as an information broker with a network spanning the galaxy.

Xi Yan recruited Kai Sha, a renowned information broker and assassin, into the Interstellar Human Military Junta and appointed her to lead its foreign intelligence network. Kai accepted the position and was sent to [Ashes] headquarters in the Ring World's Beta Section.

• Xi Yan reviewed Kai Sha's file and asked why she wanted to join the Junta.
• Kai Sha said she wanted to leave the unstable work of operating alone and offered her intelligence network in exchange for payment.
• Xi Yan welcomed Kai Sha into the Junta after she promised to put her information and network at his disposal.
• Xi Yan appointed Kai Sha to oversee [Ashes]'s foreign intelligence operations, surprising her with the authority she received on her first day.
• Xi Yan directed Kai Sha to report to [Ashes] headquarters in the Ring World's Beta Section and told her to focus on the value she brought.

A cosmic electrical storm entered the Human Empire as the government prepared for its effects. A refugee arrived with a secret treasure and asked Xi Yan for protection, while the Black Needle Pirates demanded that the Empire hand him over.

• The Zirick Cooperative shared storm research with Xi Yan, who ordered the Academy of Sciences to study the storm and arranged relief supplies for the birdfolk.
• The Academy of Sciences reported that the storm disrupted power and shields while boosting energy production and sub-light speed, and the Empire prepared its colonies and fleets.
• A lone spacecraft emerged from the storm and identified its occupant as a refugee offering a secret treasure in exchange for protection.
• After the Zirick Cooperative warned that privateers were pursuing the spacecraft, Xi Yan opened the borders to both the refugee and the Black Needle Pirates.
• The refugee's spacecraft reached an Imperial naval port, where its owner requested an audience with Xi Yan as the Black Needle Pirates offered wealth for the ship and its occupant.

Smijib sought protection from the Empire by offering a mysterious black capsule, which Xi Yan’s scientists discovered contained an incomplete star map to a hidden system. After Smijib identified it as a fragment of the Star Kingdom Atlas and claimed it led to Captain Nais’s treasure, Ashes Agents detained him for questioning.

• Smijib asked the human receptionist for protection from Black Needle and offered a valuable object in exchange.
• The receptionist agreed to protect Smijib while the Empire investigated, and Smijib retrieved a black capsule from his ship.
• Xi Yan ordered the capsule studied, and scientists found a chip containing an incomplete map to a hidden system connected to the Amaterro System.
• Smijib recognized the chip as a fragment of the Star Kingdom Atlas and said it mapped Captain Nais’s treasure.
• Ashes Agents restrained Smijib and took him to an interrogation room to learn what he knew.

Smijib told the Ashes Agents how Captain Nais had saved its people and explained that Black Needle attacked Kalimak I to find the Star Kingdom Atlas she left behind. Xi Yan learned what Black Needle wanted from Captain He Ren, then challenged the pirates to take the atlas by force.

• The Ashes Agents interrogated Smijib, who revealed that Black Needle had attacked Kalimak I and that it carried the Star Kingdom Atlas Captain Nais had left behind.
• Smijib described Captain Nais as a former mentor who had become greedy and reckless, though Smijib had remained loyal to her.
• Xi Yan reviewed Smijib's statement and examined images of the Black Needle fleet at a Stellar Base.
• Captain He Ren contacted Xi Yan, demanded the Starmap, and explained that Black Needle needed Xi Yan's fragment to reach Captain Nais's hidden treasure.
• Xi Yan refused to hand over the Starmap and told Captain He Ren to come take it himself.

Xi Yan drove Captain He Ren’s Black Needle fleet from the border, then used a decrypted starmap to uncover and destroy a hidden Black Needle base in the Kanute system. The Empire found stolen valuables and another starmap capsule in the base’s vault.

• Gorpious led the Community Fleet in crushing Captain He Ren’s force, and He Ren fled into Zirick Cooperative territory while threatening Xi Yan.
• Kai Sha warned Xi Yan that Black Needle was a powerful pirate band that might possess a Titan warship.
• The Empire’s scientists decrypted the Star Kingdom Atlas, found a hidden Hyperlane in the Sedal system, and discovered the concealed Kanute system.
• Xi Yan sent Yi Kongshu’s Space Marines to Kanute IIIa, where they destroyed Black Needle’s base and killed its pirate defenders.
• Quan Xiaojiang reported that the base had been purged, and the Empire’s teams found a treasury containing stolen goods and a starmap capsule.

Xi Yan returned stolen artworks to the Zirick Cooperative and the Nier Guardians Territory, tightened the Empire’s security after uncovering Black Needle’s infiltration plot, and put recovered human relics in museums. As war loomed between the Human Federation and the Xindari Triumvirate, he proposed creating an international organization to coordinate relations among nations.

• Xi Yan sent recovered artworks to the Zirick Cooperative and the Nier Guardians Territory under Community Fleet escort, then imposed strict inspections on incoming merchant ships after suspecting pirates were operating nearby.
• Kai Sha and the Ashes foreign affairs division traced alien infiltration attempts to Black Needle, which had planned to stir unrest in the Interstellar Human Military Junta.
• Xi Yan returned traceable treasures to their owners and placed the Imperial Seal and other recovered human artworks in museums.
• Xi Yan learned that the United Nations of Earth would stay neutral in the coming war, while the Interstellar Human Military Junta supported it and faced insults from the Xindari Triumvirate.
• Xi Yan proposed establishing an international organization to coordinate relations as tensions between the Human Federation and the Xindari Triumvirate intensified.

Xi Yan established the Sea of Stars Community, a galaxy-spanning organization for interstellar cooperation, and hosted its lavish inaugural ceremony on New Year's Day of cosmic era 2263. After a show of the Empire's military might, Xi Yan prepared to deliver the founding speech.

• Xi Yan invited civilizations across the sector to join the Sea of Stars Community, including the Iron Purifier, which angrily rejected the invitation.
• The Empire built a virtual conference server and held a preliminary meeting to agree on the organization's formation and procedures.
• On New Year's Day of cosmic era 2263, the Sea of Stars Community officially launched, bringing alien leaders and other interstellar powers together as members and observers.
• Xi Yan opened the ceremony in the virtual venue as Space Marines and the golden-armored Empire Guard performed an imposing display.
• Xi Yan took the speaking platform in his Marshal's Dress Uniform, ready to address the sector live.

Xi Yan officially established the Sea of Stars Community and introduced its first assembly as a platform for interstellar dialogue and cooperation. After Miss Voss performed “Faster than Light,” the gathering ended its opening ceremony amid enthusiastic support for the new organization.

• Xi Yan addressed representatives and viewers across the universe, declaring the Sea of Stars Community officially established.
• Xi Yan introduced a performance by the Artist Collective, and Miss Voss took the stage to sing “Faster than Light.”
• Miss Voss’s song moved the assembled leaders and viewers, and Xi Yan dedicated it to civilizations exploring the universe.
• The leaders and artists cheered, and representatives of machine intelligence nations also expressed being moved by the performance.
• The assembly announced its participating nations and powers and explained its meeting rules in a cheerful atmosphere.

At the Sea of Stars Community’s opening ceremony, Xi Yan mingled with Miss Voss and Grand Curator Wànjī Ascendant before watching delegates crowd around the Shroudwalker Enclave. As the gathering continued, curious aliens sought explanations of psionics from [Teacher] and Xi Yan.

• Xi Yan praised Miss Voss’s performance and invited her to sing at future Sea of Stars Community ceremonies.
• Xi Yan and Wànjī Ascendant discussed the resolved financial troubles and the collection pieces housed at the Museum Celestial Pivot.
• Xi Yan affirmed that city-state factions could attend the Community meeting, submit proposals, and vote as representatives from other civilizations approached them.
• Delegates and wealthy attendees crowded around the Shroudwalker Enclave to ask [Teacher] about psionics, gods, and immortality.
• When aliens asked Xi Yan to explain psionics and offered compensation, he eagerly invited them to talk elsewhere.