Gaming Moments — Stellaris — The Worm
**GAME SPOILERS AHEAD***
Find this game on the Steam platform at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/281990/Stellaris/
This adventure took place over quite some time in the game. It was quite profound to watch it all unfold, so I thought I’d tell it as a story!
Over a century or two, my empire had been hearing whispers/a voice/signal through a black hole. Occasionally, it would speak the name of a scientist… beckoning them to specific coordinates near the event horizon. Each time they approached the dimensional space fold, they’d vanish after a brief, final communication. Something about “a Worm” and “What was, will be.”… it didn’t make sense at all.
We’d sent a few to investigate this, each time the event happened. Of course, it was the ones it spoke of that would go… but rather than telling the scientists to overload their jump drives at the dimensional folds, we were curious and continued to examine it as best we could. Sadly, each scientist that went in was never heard from or seen again… except one. When they came back, appearing suddenly, they were much, much older. Even their ship’s hull showed signs of great age.
Along with mere age, their look was full of sorrow, regret, pain, and a little bit of insanity. As they locked their weapons on the local fleets there, they spoke of how they were ‘sorry’ and how it was ‘too late’. They knew what they were doing, and apparently wanted to end things themselves. They left us no choice. With the debris clearing, we had no further answers. Only the words “the Worm”, and other such phrases hinting at some kind of looping time-related causality sat on the screens of our puzzled and troubled scientists.
The Benefactors
Many decades later, a new event began on a world of which we had keen interest. For this to make sense, I need to explain the origins of my species; at creation, I chose the “Benefactor” trait, which meant that we had a seemingly helpful species helping us by leaving ancient clues and points of interest for us. It wasn’t what we expected, and our archeology efforts in a dozen places between half a dozen different star systems revealed an interesting past: this “benefactor” was once, in a very distant past, the enemy of our species in a vicious galactic war.
In their desperation to defeat their overwhelming rival, they developed some kind of technology that genetically/psionically hindered and hobbled our species. Before the war was over, they fell victim to it themselves. By our espionage and counterattack, or by their own mishandling of whatever that technology was, we can’t be certain how it ended. In the end, both our species suffered its effects. Both of our species were reduced to primitives banging rocks together on our home worlds.
The relevance of this turned out in our favor: we’d tracked their species down to the world upon which their descendants still lived… and they hadn’t regained space travel yet; in fact, they were still in the primitive age of “The Renaissance”. We’d constructed an Observation Post and continued to interfere with them in a semi-passive way utilizing appearances of visions and godly apparitions to try and “teach” them and bring them around to our form of government.
Eventually, we’d planned to genetically alter some of our agents to go into their world and replace their world leaders; when they’d reach a certain point, we would reveal ourselves and bring them into the space age… as a world completely and totally owned by us. Fitting, amusing, and I thought rather generous. We even destroyed a random asteroid that had a collision course with their world and would have wiped them out. We had plans for them.
Sometimes, some would call it fate while others would describe it as random chaotic chance, but sometimes the best-laid plans will fail no matter what you do. Our “benefactors” began echoing the phrases of this strange “Worm” causality instance. It was impossible for them to have come by this from our species, and we would have seen any other known force interfering with the planet. The echoes became a cult, and the cult soon spread to a planet-wide celebration of this “Worm”. They drew symbols everywhere, danced in the streets, and just… celebrated to the detriment of everything else.
We sent some scientists down to infiltrate the crowds, take part in the celebrations if they could, to learn more. Soon enough… every signal from the team stopped. Moments after that, we checked… every living member of our “benefactors” on the entire planet, including our team, was… gone. Just gone. There were some gravimetric waves quickly dissipating, but other than that, not a trace. Uneaten meals, still warm, were left on tables. Pets were left unfed. A few fires sprouted up from unattended stoves… gone. The entire planet was devoid of sapient life. No signals, no signs, nothing. All gone.
The Plans
Some time later, we heard more of these “whispers” from another black hole. We’d apparently received plans for building a research structure… and could only build it on our homeworld. It was a nice pyramid, even a dark stone surface, which looked especially delightful. Our system was a beautiful trinary system, which means three suns danced in a slow, complex gravimetric waltz with each other. We called them the Sisters. One was a brown dwarf (super-heated gas giant that can be 13–80 times the size of Jupiter, but never achieved fusion and failed to become a full-fledged star). The other two were fairly average-sized young stars.
With the structure completed, even though we didn’t understand some of the science behind its strange designs, it did help us isolate and examine those strange echoes we heard from black holes. It was enough to make the scientific leap toward interdimensional physics and consider these spatial rifts in new ways. At long last, we began researching the way to open the dimensional rift for this Worm entity singing/talking/signaling us from behind a black hole. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or not, because all the previous events haven’t turned out too well for us.
Out of precaution, I ordered all local fleets into neighboring systems but stationed at the jump lanes just in case they’d need to respond immediately. Bubbles, our 100+ fleet mascot Space Amoeba, didn’t seem to think there was too much to worry about, but we moved her with the fleet in any case. When the fleets were in positions and standing by, our citizens briefed and waiting, scientists eagerly at their stations, we finalized our preparations and opened it.
The Worm arrived through our portal. It was impossibly large, something we’d only even dreamed of once before. In a distant part of the galaxy, another empire told stories of a “Dimensional Horror” that dominated a system. They said it had become stuck in the portal it was emerging from, trapped by whatever forces of resistance it’d found. Every attempt to communicate with that thing had failed, and it was very, very strong. The Curator Enclave didn’t know much about the Worm, and they are the ancient experts on just about everything in the galaxy. Was our Worm another such entity as that Dimensional Horror? If it was, it was unlike the other one in that it actually seemed to have been taking a strange interest in us.
Every citizen on my planet heard it. They were terrified by it. It spoke to us at once, and directly.
There was one wordless question, a choice. We chose to embrace the Worm and its goals for us, its interest in us, whatever path that would take my empire down. I had doubts, even as I responded, but I was very curious. Despite the past events, I had a slim hope of something wonderful. Why go through all that trouble just to be yet another problem for us? Maybe we had misunderstood it? In any case, the choice was made.
The stars went out, and the system grew cold. We watched in horror as our beloved trinary system changed. Each of our three stars imploded into their own small cores. Without the supernova that usually accompanies such events, each of them had collapsed into their own black hole. We didn’t understand or care at the time, but the gravimetric waltz of the three stars had somehow maintained itself. The Sisters continued their dance in the darkness. Unlike normal black holes, the system did not suffer the intense fields of gravity one of these terrors generates, much less three. We had no answers.
We were spared the annihilation of the star system that usually accompanies such events, somehow, but we faced something very different. As we were distracted, the Worm simply vanished. We didn’t understand why or how it did the things it had accomplished-but it was gone now.
My hearts sank. Our world, and the other planetoids, including the station and science ships, were, thankfully, all safe. We were changed though, by whatever the Worm had done. Each and every other species currently on my world, in that system, were changed on a genetic level: they were disfigured, but found they could thrive on this new, dead world we had once been born on. Instead of the lush tropics of our homeland, it was now a Tomb World; devoid of life, destroyed aesthetics, atmosphere thick of regret and decay… it was a place few species could ever live. But we could, at least we could now.
As we looked out into the system, we found that each and every other planetoid had been reshaped into a similar environment… worlds that we could now expand into. The barren and lifeless planetoids around our beloved dead trinary stars had become habitable now. Those civilians on my homeworld had been cursed, but the blessing endowed upon our species' home system will eventually outweigh the cost of what we’ve suffered. As far as we can tell now, our “benefactors” are still gone forever… that continues to be a sadness, but we will be happy with having overcome our past to rise into prominence. Did they have a different answer to the question of the Worm? Is that why they are now gone?
Today is a strange day in the empire. An odd fate has brought us new opportunities, and the cost is acceptable. With our new selves, we look upon the galaxy with resolve: come what may, we will persevere.
