Safety didn't exist any longer.

It might not have ever been there in truth, but now even the illusion of its presence was gone. Left in its place was the cold reality of danger. That, which had frantically whispered in the background. Warning and pleading to catch someone- anyone's attention, only to be ignored.

But now it was too late.

The damage was done.

Life in the universe has always been a brutal game survival. That was the simple truth of things, and just because technology could let a species travel the stars: that truth didn't change.

Back when creatures still fought for their meals and fled from becoming one themselves, it was an everyday reality. Something they could never ignore or escape. Yet, once they were crossing the void at speeds faster than light, it almost seemed as though it were forgotten. Buffered by the advances of technology, convience, and social constructs.

Perhaps, because of the false belief that they'd finally "made it." That by conquering their own home worlds and leaving for the infinite horizon, species would finally be safe. That they could finally put their primitive pasts behind them, to be forgotten.

But that was simply wishful thinking.

Instead of the mud, water, or air- they simply fled to a new environment. Towards the vast empty space between worlds, where the rules were just the same as before. If anyone thought they were safe, there was a misunderstanding of the situation. Just another illusion brought about by self-denial, and nothing more.

Out there, were other races. Those who could very well be far stronger, far smarter, far more technologically advanced. For there were countless possibilities, variables, and threats. No longer just one planet's worth of dangers to survive, but billions.

And no one could be trusted.

Not completely.

That much was obvious after half the Senate calmly drew weapons and began executing the others without warning. All while their armies and fleets did likewise.

It was like a coup.

Lead by the Gastruca, aimed at the fringe species they had deemed a threat- but that was too, a lie.

For as the violence continued, it soon became clear that there was no one winner, or even motivation. Whatever boundaries had once defined the bloody takeover, it seemed that all species were being slaughtered equally. The aggressors and victims didn't seem to matter. Not if it was a circumstance of lifelong friendship, an alliance- it mattered little, as all such concepts were thrown to the ground and covered in blood. For every assumed agreement, there was treachery.

What had begun as an attempted genocide of the fringe species, directed by the Gastruca, quickly found itself devolved into a slaughter of anything and everything. As if completely at random. For the horrible motivation they had begun this violence with, the Gastruca found that they, themselves, were also targeted. Their own forces turning on them, as if they were just as likely a target as those they'd wished to destroy.

And so, the mask began to falter. Revealing beneath it, the hidden truth.

What had begun under the guise of a coup, was something much, much, worse.

Some rare few species resisted, of course. The strongest of those banded together to try and fight in the confusion. Of the fringe worlds, those who were comically the first targets threatened: most survived. As the true chaos set in, those that had ample time to react to the first assaults fled by the millions, often forming fleets together under the relative and neutral protection offered by the Quarantine lines.

There, the Unions defenses were a deterent. For even in the fiercest of the fighting, and most horrid of the crimes- the lines were the one true exception to the chaos. Though the military forces there could not leave their posts, all who reached them were granted safety.

Still, it could be found as tragic irony, that the true defenders of life in the galaxy, could do nothing but watch as all they protected burned. Trapped at their stations, forced to focus on the Consumption, while their homeworlds and fleets burned behind them.

Even more tragic still, was that all of this had seemingly begun due to their failure. If the personal fleets of the inner-systems had not been forced to assist the 33rd lines, and had instead remained to maintain a constant pressure on their neighbors... perhaps things could have been different. Perhaps the stalemate in place might have continued.

Or perhaps it had been inevitable.

No one could truly know.

Within a single cycle, the armies over almost every species were in ruins. Their worlds were pillaged, their young stolen, and their resistance crushed. In the midst of this, the terrible game of survival was all that was left, as the losing sides struggled to comprehend how it had happened in the first place. The familiar screams over communication channels filled every unit of the galaxy as they begged for mercy or swore for revenge.

But none of that could change the facts.

A millennia of evolution had set them into the sky, and only a few generations had thought them tamed. The Union had misunderstood how wrong that belief was. You could not take something that walked hand in hand with death, rape, and murder- force it to submit, and then believe it yours. The arrogance of the Union, the mentality that it was immortal and undefeatable... well, now it was being united in a different form, and all it had only taken was a single species. Just a minuscule fraction of the countless races that had made it whole, to undo all that it had ever made. And all in the interest of one selfish need: a primal necessity that was not all that different from the threat of the Consumption, fought for so long on their borders.

To consume everything, and everyone.

The Gemynd had finally taken their freedom.