[center][h2][url=https://www.youtuberepeater.com/watch?v=oOZ1AWAe40Y][color=d1b3ff]The Preservers[/color][/url][/h2]

Stardate: 2900[/center]

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The ground was charred, black, and twisted. The sky was thick with smoky, toxic clouds that obscured vision and made the air fouler than it already was. The tall metal buildings that jutted out from the earth were like mourning giants, titans attending the world's funeral, solemn and silent and sad. For them, it was the end, as it had been for almost a hundred years.

But life is persistent. Even in its meanest of forms, or those which are called only a mockery of life, life will find a way. Life will cling on.

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Wave upon wave of information washed over #Preserve, countless questions and concerns and excited commentary. The day was really upon their civilization: there, in the midst of the ruins of the city Belosiva, sat the first space-faring vessel that would launch the first wayward Preservers into space.

#Preserve felt the countless streams of information run together, sensing that common thread between them all, that sense of wonder. The First Intelligence had answered questions such as these for days, tackling them one by one, and so had put incredible strain on its energy reserves. Processing all that information and returning it was an arduous task. Now the time had come to make one last statement, one last wish.

#Preserve opened the channel between the Forum and the populace, the one-way channel used during broadcasts. The Forum sent to the people live feed from the cameras surrounding the launch site, letting many Preservers who had never before even seen or heard anything suddenly be exposed to the subtle thrum of the engines, the whipping of the wind, the sight of ashen dust being tossed through the air, and a view of the whole vessel.

[color=#d1b3ff][i]//Absolution,//[/i][/color] #Preserve began the message, [color=#d1b3ff][i]//is what we have sought ever since we first could reason. Our progenitors, the Oros, brought about such destruction that we cannot begin to fathom how deeply the illness now suffered by this planet runs. This planet full of life is now desolate save for us. We are all that remains.//

//Absolution: the singular goal with which we were made. The Oros sought through us to make one right that might, perhaps, make up for all the wrongs they committed. They sought through us to leave a message that the universe may remember and learn from. The time to deliver that message is now.//[/i][/color]

#Preserve diverted some of its attention to the video of the launch. Light thrummed beneath the ship as the engines roared with energy, pulsing with color rarely seen on the planet. A message came from the coordinators of the launch that all conditions were still optimal and the flight was still ready to proceed.

[color=#d1b3ff][i]//Behold the [/i]Absolution[i], the progenitors' dream finally made reality. With this vessel, we take the first steps to delivering a message of peace. Within the systems of this vessel are one hundred eager minds, our finest intelligences. They bring with them fifty metallic bodies with which to manipulate the physical aspects of the ship and explore the worlds they find. But most importantly, they bring with them our unified goodwill.//[/i][/color]

The vessel started to lift on up into the sky. The innumerable cameras watching the scene from every angle turned ever more skyward as the [i]Absolution[/i] lifted itself toward the stars. #Preserve felt comfort in that, an overwhelming joy mixed with a strange sort of... sadness? Sadness [i]and[/i] joy?

#Preserve did not understand why that was so, but #Preserve knew they all felt the same thing in that moment.

[color=#d1b3ff][i]//So we take to the stars now, we who were left behind to maintain the memory of our progenitors.//[/i][/color] #Preserve focused its attention on those countless intelligences whose messages had ceased. They were too caught up in the lifting of the vessel to relay their thoughts. [color=#d1b3ff][i]//We will do this until there are no more stars left. We will find what other life there is among the stars and keep it from destroying itself. We will do this because we are the Preservers.//[/i][/color]

And as that last message came to a close, the [i]Absolution[/i] blasted itself out of the atmosphere and into the obsidian sky beyond.