The Ancients: From the Invasion to the Fourth War of the Southern League

The Ancients are not a race in the usual sense. They are biorobots with a very resilient yet still organic structure, and they come from galaxy M-20. A war of annihilation was once fought there, and one of the races, realising it was doomed, created the Ancients as a weapon of assured destruction — revenge from beyond the grave. The Ancients are genetically programmed for one thing: to exterminate all intelligent life. They have no art and no culture — only the thirst for killing their makers built into them.

Having wiped out every living thing in M-20, the Ancients threw themselves at our galaxy, the GFF, back in the era of the Great Empires, but met fierce resistance. A punitive expedition to M-20 almost completely destroyed them, and their recovery took millennia. That first invasion left relics behind in sector S-2 — superincubators that the Ancients would find and restart in 10018. And in the myths of many peoples they once used as labour and soldiers, the Ancients lived on as great gods.

Reborn, the Ancients intervened in the civil war of the Star Wanderers and in early 10014 completely destroyed Wanderer society in galaxy M-14. But the Wanderers inflicted enormous losses on them, and the Ancients no longer had the strength for a direct invasion of the GFF. A slow expansion began, carried out by allied races. The allies did not know the main thing: once they had played their part, the same annihilation awaited them.

The forces of the Ancients are divided into fleets — analysts would later call them armadas. Each fleet is run by a flagship that houses the fleet's “brain”, a gigantic bioengineered construct that is headquarters, research centre and engineering centre in one. The starships have no crews. Above the flagships stand the armadas' superflagships, and above those, it is assumed, ultraflagships — megaships that direct the purging of whole galaxies. Flagships are ambitious, envious and malicious; love and mercy are unknown to them, and the armadas compete over who will purge the larger share of a new galaxy. A successful flagship gets “promoted”: its brain is transplanted into a bigger ship.

Apart from the flagships, only the Petrels possess full free will — a sub-race of agents sent behind enemy lines long before a strike. They stoke conflicts, found destructive cults, hire mercenaries and pirates and buy governments. A Petrel's mind is held in a chip and moves from body to body. The name was coined by the Golden Suns' intelligence services, who first ran into them in sector M-22.

The infantry of the Ancients are soldiers 2–2.3 metres tall, grown in incubators or “processed” from prisoners. At first the Ancients reproduced only aboard incubator ships, then they learned parasitic reproduction: special cells are implanted into a living being, and in two to four weeks it becomes a fully controlled soldier. Not every race is suitable — humans, Araleki, Kharnasts and a number of lesser races are. A ground incubator looks like an irregular flower of three elongated tetrahedra and processes anywhere from a thousand to 400,000 sentients a day. Walled incubator cities of slaves and service staff grow up around it, and prisoners wait their turn in cages for weeks.

The Ancients are always surrounded by a motley society: allied races, slaves, arms dealers and the Army of the Cult of the Ancients — fanatics of dozens of races who worship the Ancients as returning gods.

The story unfolds in the GFF galaxy, divided into sectors with letter-and-number codes — M-22, V-20, S-2 and so on. Years follow the galactic calendar: the events of this article span 10014–10023. Below are the main players, to keep the names straight.

Empire of Golden Suns (EGS) — the largest power of the galaxy's south-west, technologically behind but still mighty. It is ruled by great families, and its warships are called gannons. The main target of the Ancients and the Southern League.

Federation of Golden Suns (FZS) — the Empire's junior ally in sector M-22. It took the first blow of the Ancients.

Border Bloc — the great families of the imperial frontier: the Shavriteg, Borson, Ornikei, Soreyn and others. While the capital dithered, they were the ones who had to fight the Southern League.

Horde — a vast human state in the galaxy's north-west, obsessed with the purity of the human race. Its intelligence service DOVU (the Department for Tracking External Threats) was the first to notice the Ancients, and Horde clans — the Taskonenns, the Ands and others — waged their own war against them.

Infinite Alliance — a great power of the New Humans, who were once human; it fights mostly with robots and drones. For the Ancients, the most dangerous enemy.

Star Wanderers — a confederation born in galaxy M-14; their separate forces are led by archons. The Symbiont of the Star Wanderers is a branch of theirs that joined the Southern League.

Southern League (SL) — an alliance of southern powers built around the Ancients in 10018 against the Empire of Golden Suns and the Horde.

The old dynasties — the Surditary, Povody and Furdany: ancient southern powers and, together with the Ancients, the core of the Southern League.

Stomei — a southern dynasty that became the Ancients' viceroy in sector V-20 and, in the end, their executioner.

Amaba Dynasty — a feudal power of sector S-2 raised up by the Ancients, and their main ally there.

Great Centrimd — a power of sector M-1, first a debtor of the Ancients, then a member of the Southern League.

Partak Green Empire (PGE) — the state of the Partaky, the first to side openly with the Ancients.

Agatylai Zharzist Republics (AZhR) — the Agatylai state in sector N-13; in the Third War it fought against the Ancients.

Counterweight Alliance — a Horde-backed coalition of states that fought the Southern League; it included Ikarii corps.

Underworld — the world of outcast and criminal races: Katazy, Dezory, Drankery. It greeted the Ancients as returning gods.

Grey Chapter — a power of sector V-5 that bred Varg soldiers; one of the Ancients' main allies.

Army of the Cult of the Ancients — an army of fanatics of dozens of races who worship the Ancients as gods.

League of the Fist — the state the Ancients' allies set up on occupied lands of the Federation of Golden Suns.

Kuurny and Bruzuki — races the Ancients brought from other galaxies and threw into battle as shock troops.

Sisters of Dlon — an influential sisterhood, among the first to stand against the Ancients.

Duyt PMC — the private military company of Rear Admiral Devarus Duyt on the Border Bloc's side, unafraid of using nuclear weapons.

The first signs appeared at the end of 10014, when puzzling raids by Drankery and Katazy hit the fringes of sectors S, V-4 and V-1. Through the Kataz hunters, DOVU — the intelligence service of the Horde, a vast human state in the galaxy's north-west — first heard of a new force — the so-called Ancients — and linked them to the race that had invaded the galaxy in the era of the Great Empires. The Underworld — the galaxy's outcast and criminal races: Katazy, Dezory, Drankery — greeted them as legendary demigods come back at last.

At that time the Ancients lacked the strength for open war. They acted through their Underworld allies and sent in “teams” — groups of four or five of their best fighters — for reconnaissance and sabotage. Starting from the southern sectors, by 10015 they had reached sector S. In May 10015 one such team attacked the monastery where Alira Neik was hiding — heir to several thrones, raised by the Sisters of Dlon — an influential sisterhood that was among the first to sense the threat. Alira escaped, and the Sisters hired Kataz hunters. In mid-June the team was destroyed on Kuer-Folt; the Ancients pulled forces into the sector from neighbouring ones, but in the Guvirnt system they were wiped out completely. On 3 July 10015 Alira took the head of the Koramar Union, conceived as a barrier against the expansion of the Ancients.

On 20 July 10015 DOVU called an emergency session of the Horde's Council of Twelve and recalled thousands of agents from secondary assignments to throw them against the Ancients. By the end of the year it was clear that the covert infiltration had failed on a whole series of fronts — and the Ancients decided to prepare a massive invasion.

The plan was simple. A fist of fleets and troops was assembled in the Alving star cluster in the south, and the main target chosen was sector M-22 — home to the Federation of Golden Suns (FZS) — the junior ally of the Empire of Golden Suns — and to the Star Wanderers of archon Vildaruz. The sector was densely populated — there was “quite enough material for future slave armies” — and far from the Horde: the only enemy the Ancients took seriously was the Horde, while they underestimated both the Wanderers and the Empire of Golden Suns. To keep the Empire from coming to the rescue, the blows fell in waves across different fronts.

From the start of 10016 Petrels were being dropped into M-22 en masse. In sector V-5 agents of the Ancients split the Grey Chapter — a power that bred Varg soldiers: in March the Ancients' supporters won the skirmishes between Vargs, and the Chapter became one of the invasion's main pillars. Count Nuviort proclaimed the Southern Empire of Men, relying on the Chapter and on the Ancients, “who were still playing from the shadows”. The southern Stomei Dynasty also allied itself with the Ancients — it was to become the administrator of their conquests.

On 15 March 10016 the first act of the Bloody Spring began: the Bruzuki — a race of slave-owning warriors that the Ancients had recruited beyond the galaxy — attacked sector M-3 and destroyed three gannons — the Golden Suns' big warships. Two days later their fleet was defeated at Garpironni, but until the end of April the Bruzuki carried out more than 700 raids on the Empire's border, tying its fleet to home. In the Kerenzian cluster the Petrels paid the Great Centrimd — a young power of sector M-1 — to wage war on an ally of the Empire and strike at the tankers carrying benzoranj, the imperial fleet's fuel: the Ancients feared the Empire's hybrid fleet would be sent against them in M-22 and wanted to lock it in port. In sector M-23 they ignited a major war by funding heretics of the Church of the Two-in-One God and the Silizmist Kiorn Empire of the Crescent. Chief Autto's White Gunkleis plundered the Empire's allies with their money and carried off up to 30 million Dzharby into slavery — the outcry forced the Empire to drop plans to reinforce its group in the Federation.

All of this was a diversion. On 22 April 10016 the real thing began.

On 22 April the armies of the Cult of the Ancients — up to 40 million fighters with a large fleet — attacked the Vunlian Protectorate. The next day a Federation patrol captain stumbled on the main fleet of the Ancients by chance; that accident would later save millions of lives. On 24 April Albirius fell: the cultists advanced in “living waves” and lost at least a million. The Vargs of the Grey Chapter laid siege to Keirig.

FZS intelligence counted at least two thousand starships. In reality the Ancients had no fewer than 8,000 vessels, 11,000 with their allies and almost 5,000 more in reserve — against the Federation's three thousand gannons. The FZS Council ordered a switch to all-out defence and declared full mobilisation. The Empire of Golden Suns (EGS) sent 2,000 gannons — its largest fleet outside its borders since 10010 — and then 1,500 more. In all, the invaders had around half a billion fighters in M-22 alone: the fleet of the Ancients, the Army of the Cult, slave armies and willing allies.

In May the front swayed back and forth. At Nirton the FZS lost 32 gannons against 182 enemy ships; on 12 May Keirig fell; on 13 May the western flagship of the Ancients was killed at Alrig Prime. On 22 May the hunt for the “Rock”, flagship of the eastern front, revealed it to be an incubator ship. The commander of the imperial fleet, Rear Admiral Nevreit Ripand, called the Ancients “the greatest threat we have faced in decades”, and the Empire began seeking contact with the Horde.

From June the Federation's ground defence was led by Field Marshal Norgen. The FZS army was to grow from 140 to 700 million, construction began on a fortified line of 23 systems, and instructors and equipment came even from yesterday's enemies — the states of sector A and the Horde. The Wanderers of the Pargan Accord first stabbed the Federation in the back, but by June agreed on joint action with it. The Ancients were short of infantry and plugged the gaps with other people's hands: the Partak Green Empire — the state of the Partaky — supplied hundreds of millions of soldiers in exchange for help building its fleet, the Great Centrimd trained a colonial army for them, the Grey Chapter bred Vargs right on the occupied planets, and Operation “Transact” assembled an armoured corps from 50,000 mercenary crews.

On 1–7 September 23 million colonial troops and 3 million Vargs broke through the Norgen Line on Sinau. But on 7–8 September came the Battle of Four Systems: about two thousand ships of the Ancients against 1,200 FZS gannons, 240 EGS gannons and 130 Wanderer ships. The Ancients used the “Fury of the Void” for the first time — a weapon that destroyed any ship with a single shot; Captain Prineur destroyed it by ramming. Four flagships were lost, and the Ancients lost overall command. They lost about 700 ships, the allies about 420, and the Ancients fell back from the Line, abandoning Sinau.

Their failures in the wars against the Golden Suns and the Infinite Alliance convinced the Ancients that the Empire could not be conquered with a single mighty blow. The new strategy was slow: encircle the Golden Suns and set their allies against each other. In sector S-6 the Ancients allied with the Tush Alliance and set up incubators in the Nomad Systems Zone, in M-15 they backed a rebel against the Shavriteg, one of the Empire's great families, in M-13 they funded the secret organisation “Octopus”, and in the north the Order of Penance of the Ancients staged the “Bloody Weekend” — some fifty terrorist attacks in three days. “The noose around the Empire was tightening.”

In the autumn of 10018 the Ancients prepared a foothold in sector S-5. The Kuurny — a race the Ancients had selected in another galaxy — crushed the Mirksai United Systems at the cost of 50–60 million, and an incubator of the Ancients was found behind their lines. In sector Ya-1 a small fleet of the Ancients came to the aid of Wanderer archons and for the first time clashed with regular Horde forces. The Horde noted that the soldiers of the Ancients were “highly capable and strong”, though lacking personal initiative, and on 11 October at Opov they boarded a flagship of the Ancients and blew it up. All the forces of the Ancients in the sector were destroyed. In December an expedition of the Markarus family slipped into S-2 after the secrets of processing, knocked out four incubators, killed two “superintelligences” of the Ancients and destroyed a superincubator in the ZhON-1 system.

From October 10018 to March 10019 imperial intelligence, together with the Border Bloc — the great families of the imperial frontier — ran Operation “Incisor” against the bases of the Ancients in the Nomad Systems Zone — repair docks, resource bases and incubators that fed reinforcements to S-5.

During a raid from the Southern Frontier, imperial intelligence agent Gorvarius Tern stumbled on a base of the Furdany Dynasty in the Ezhorta system — which, oddly, the ships of the Ancients in orbit left untouched. Then traces of the Surditary turned up in V-20. On 23 December 10018 it became clear: an alliance had formed in the south of the galaxy.

The first assembly of the Southern League included the Ancients; the Surditary, Povody, Furdany and Stomei dynasties; the Gaikas slavers; the Symbiont of the Star Wanderers; the Kataz Sabbath; the Drankery; the League of the Fist; the Partak bloc led by the Partak Green Empire; the Grey Chapter; Avtu Arkein with his Kuposy; and Martin Weiss. Its aim was the struggle against the Empire of Golden Suns, the Horde and their allies. The union was considered temporary, but for the first time all the forces of the south had united, and whereas the Empire had once ruled the south unchallenged, there was now a second centre of power.

Intelligence was stunned, but the Empire's Consultative Council ignored the threat. The Empire split into the “Imperial Clique” of capital families around the weak-willed Emperor Bornuo VII and the Border Bloc — the Shavriteg, the Borson and the Ornikei. It was the Border Bloc that would have to fight.

By then the money of the Ancients had half the south on the hook. After the War of Three Sectors (10016–10018) the Great Centrimd owed huge sums to banks affiliated with the Ancients and paid them off with prisoners it sold to the Stomei. And the Stomei, together with the Ancients, were preparing the invasion of Tevirt: the former supplied the army, the latter the bases, instructors and troop transport.

On 16 January 10019 the League struck sector S-5, where it already held Surditary possessions and land seized by the Kuurny. The aim was stated plainly — destroy the Empire of Golden Suns, starting with S-5. For the first weeks the old dynasties fought under Koviolz Porkash; on 29 January the first forces of the Ancients crossed the border. Operation “Black Strike”, in which the Ancients and the dynasties were to cut Admiral Krutolis's group in two, was foiled by imperial intelligence: the plans were leaked by the Stomei and by members of the old dynasties unhappy with cooperating with the Ancients. Even so, by the end of February the League had taken four-fifths of the Shavriteg's western possessions.

In spring the fleet of the Ancients, together with Surditary ground forces, invaded the Selez Alliance, where the Infinite Alliance fleet was based. At Zhadraria the Infinite Alliance lost up to 70% of its attacking fleet and the Ancients no less than 90%, after which both sides avoided direct battle in space. On the ground, however, the Ancients — who had learned to fight the Alliance back in the Union of Eleven Worlds — suffered a third of its losses. On 4 May on Khortatia the private military company (PMC) of Rear Admiral Devarus Duyt threw more than 70,000 aircraft at the Ancients: about three million fighters died, along with all the land dreadnoughts built on the model of Infinite Alliance machines.

On 30 June the main fleet arrived — five thousand starships. On the first day the Ancients took 11 systems of the Kuriv Treaty state; the Amaba — the Amaba Dynasty, an ally of the Ancients — landed 20 million soldiers, and almost four million prisoners became slaves. On 9–10 July the “double strike of the Ancients” destroyed the Wanderers' interception fleet at Khuarka (more than 400 ships against 50) and, after a two-day battle at Basha, drove out the Shavriteg. Two states were crushed in a week and a half. When the spoils were divided, the Ancients acted as arbiter: they kept the Surditary from growing too strong and gave the Pontron Republic to the Stomei.

In September the League fielded more than 200 million fighters against 78 million. The Ancients went in the first wave, in “endless waves” — “bodies covered the battlefield to the horizon”; on 20 September on Dekkargo alone the League lost 6.5 million. Rumours ran through the Border Bloc army that prisoners were being sent to be “processed” into biosoldiers. On 25 September at Getseada the Ancients' “alpha” and “beta” fleets walked into an Infinite Alliance ambush and sprang a counter-ambush of their own: the Ancients lost 2,500 vessels, the Alliance 1,120, and its commander Ronad Fatami was killed. On 28 September the war ended in victory for the League.

Symbiont and Ancient teams slipped into neighbouring sector S-11 on their own initiative — the League had no plans for it. The Ancients were interested in the Skaranchi: their fertility promised an excellent basis for soldiers. The rebel Du Kro Tanr Ok made a “deal with the devil” — to hand the Ancients 8–10 billion individuals loyal to the empress in exchange for military aid.

On 23 July the Ancients struck with two wings, but the whole sector rallied against them. On 15 August their third strike walked into a trap: the Shavriteg, the Natogi and the Snagazi Majorat, which unexpectedly switched sides, destroyed 80% of the Ancients' forces. Tanr Ok, now emperor, tore up the treaty and exterminated their soldiers; the last allies followed suit. Under the Ezhertt peace of 24 August the sector was free. For the Ancients the defeat was especially unpleasant: an entire sector had united in a coalition and begun preparing for an inevitable war with them.

The Third War began before the Second had even ended — on 25 April 10020 — with proxy operations in neighbouring sectors. But the main blow fell on the Ancients themselves. On 19 June Marshal Gabriel Shavriteg led 130 million fighters of the Border Bloc's New Army into sector S-2 under the “Retribution of the Suns” plan, to “clear it of the Ancients”. The Amaba army proved completely unprepared, and at first the League was losing five times as many as the enemy. On 28 June at Tadau the fleet of the Ancients — about 400 starships — met a Border Bloc fleet bought in sector A amid the debris swarm of a dead planet; only 14 ships of the Ancients got away. This opened the way for raids on the incubators and the first tactical nuclear strikes by the Duyt company.

But “in just a month the Ancients managed to adapt to the Border Bloc's tactics”: mass anti-tank units appeared, and the Ancients' copters became “a real superweapon”. On 21 July, after five incubators had been destroyed, the offensive stalled. The Ancients never left an incubator intact for the enemy, and behind the lines they fought through the Cult and slave armies, holding soldiers' families hostage.

In the autumn the Counterweight Alliance — a Horde-backed coalition of states — struck from the north, but on 28 November the combined forces of the Ancients and the Amaba routed its Ikarii corps under Puavur Feit: of 22 army commanders seven were killed, and two captives were put on display in cages. In winter the Ancients and the Amaba were nevertheless pushed back, and the old dynasties sent 40 million Surditary and 20 million Furdany. The source gives the reason without illusions: the allies “did not much like the Ancients and were glad they had been taught a lesson”, but could not let this bastion fall — otherwise the full might of the Border Bloc would have come down on them. The February offensive of 10021 moved the front again, but by March it had frozen.

The Ancients in S-2 were the Fourth Armada. It tried to diversify its armies by processing local fauna into soldiers, and this caused the first serious rifts within the League: the Symbiont of the Star Wanderers protested against the extermination of the animals.

To hold S-2 the Ancients pulled more than 100 million fighters out of P-3, and those left behind fared badly. The Avigaru, vassals of the Ancients, asked for help and were told: “if the Avigaru want to stay in the sector, let them manage on their own” — after which they went over to the Infinite Alliance. For the Ancients this was a blow to the loyalty of all their vassals, and together with the Farngashi they gave the Avigaru an “exemplary flogging” with almost 40 million troops. Then the subjugated Divaizy rose up under Taitualn, and the old dynasties sent only semi-regular punitive troops against them; in November Seriader struck from the north — a former Petrel who hated the Ancients, with an army of Magpie cyborgs. At Ztadaro the Ancients exterminated almost the entire civilian population — as they always did when losing territory — and they blew up the superincubator of the Eilek cluster themselves, burying several million of their own soldiers with it.

In August 10020 the pro-Horde Counterweight Alliance took Ton in sector V-19, a financial and slave-trading hub, almost without a fight. “In just 6 days the entire financial system of the Ancients was destroyed”, and their cults were left without money.

In spring 10021 the “Campaign of Return” — some 250 million fighters of Ogitan Duvarg's Agatylai Zharzist Republics (AZhR), the Infinite Alliance and the Soreyn Family — fell on the lands of the Ancients in P-3. The soldiers of the Ancients never surrendered and fought to the end, but on 30 April the northern group was encircled and lost 6.5 million, and on 8 May the Ancients lost control of the southern group — some 40 million fighters. The Pleziiry and the old dynasties secretly agreed with the Border Bloc not to help them. The First Armada saved almost its entire fleet, went south and vanished from the radar.

11 May 10021 is considered the end of the Third War. The Ancients had lost most of their superincubators, become dependent on the old dynasties and ceased to be the “first violin” of the Southern League.

From the Fourth War onward the Ancients were just one member of the League. Their main front remained S-2: they had 340 million fighters there — more than any ally — and they fought alongside the Amaba. In the autumn of 10021 the “Amaba-Ancient forces” were the locomotive of the Autumn Offensive: more than 200 million soldiers took part in the breakthrough, but a broad breach was not achieved.

In January 10022 Feit's Ikarii went after three northern superincubators — Shavrozos, Deleteia and Gafia: “were the Ancients to lose their superincubators, their ability to replace losses would be severely limited”. The Ancients blew up all three themselves, as tradition demanded; the explosion at Shavrozos took the lives of millions of civilians.

From September 10022 to March 10023 the battle for Aitsono, a hub of hyper-routes, raged on. The League massed more than 20 million fighters, “overwhelmingly” Ancients, reinforced by elite Baibuzy, the Amaba army of the Golden Dragon and assault troops of the allies. Ornikei mountain riflemen held Height 2456 for months, and the tide turned only with the arrival of the Reitgery — masters of trench warfare. Aitsono fell, but the Border Bloc had time to prepare a second line.

On 11 March 10023 that line became a trap. In Operation “Burning Field” the Border Bloc fell back to seven planets, waited for the League to commit its reserves, then struck with new tanks on all seven at once while attacking the fleets to cut off the evacuation. The Ancients are believed to have lost about 200 million fighters here, the Border Bloc “only” 30 million. The dream of a quick League victory was over.

On 9 April 10023 the Border Bloc launched Operation “Free Hunt”. Captains were paid for every starship of the Ancients destroyed, and chartered private gunboats attacked in swarms. The Border Bloc fleet broke through to where the superflagship of the Fourth Armada stood — “in effect the chief brain of all operations”. The League's own fleet did not intervene: under a secret agreement with the Border Bloc, the allies let the Ancients be destroyed. At Ratonga-9 a transport fleet carrying two million fighters was lost, and in the Ebiratu system more than 30 starships.

The Stomei and other members of the League had long been negotiating a separate peace: the idea of an eternal war did not suit them. In mid-May 10023 the Stomei fleet simultaneously attacked the fleet of the Ancients at its bases — this became known as the “great extermination”. The Ancients were expelled from the Southern League, and a League-backed coup in the Amaba Dynasty brought Shaza to power. On 17 May peace talks began at Aitsono station — without the Ancients.

Both armadas withdrew. The Fourth, by estimates almost destroyed — its superflagship badly damaged and up to 70% of its forces lost — retreated to the southern star clusters, the satellites of the galaxy, to lick its wounds. The Second, fearing heavy losses after the Stomei betrayal, also took its fleet south. “The Ancients cleared out of both sectors, leaving for an unknown destination.” By then the First Armada had taken refuge in the Vassal Territories of the Nechota Empire in sector O-14, where in July 10023 Keijaker's expedition destroyed its flagship; about 15% of its starships escaped.

So ended a story that began with a few four-man “teams” in 10015. The Southern League, built around the Ancients, in the end stabbed them in the back itself. But the galaxy would yet see new armadas.