Fiction:Aoshanti Pure

"A mad, vengeful ghost, haunting the bones of a fallen giant."

We escaped the sack of Abzu! We survived the fall of the Golden Throne. When all else fell to darkness and barbarism, we kept the flame of civilization burning. The Realm, the true Realm, lives on through us.

History
The Nibbairu horde ran unchecked across Aoshanti worlds. Jinohl's cold spearhead plunged ever deeper into the galaxy. As 0 AR approached, with both threats closing in on the Concourse like the jaws of a steel trap, the Empire began to fall apart at the seams. Riots and rebellions flared up across the Empire. Vassal species turned on their masters. The Emperor abdicated his throne and then vanished; popular rumor claimed he was murdered by his own bodyguards. At that, even Abzu trembled. Imperial aristocrats evacuated the throne world in droves, fleeing not only the Nibbairu and Jinohl but also the justice of the mob.

These refugees fled everywhere they thought they might find safety. Nearly a million of them ended up at SATVEGA, a matrioshka brain used by the Aoshanti to help govern their galactic empire. They represented a sizable fraction of the Empire's central administration, from vaunted Councilors and Ministers down to minor department clerks, along with all the various courtiers and honor guards befitting their station. All of them came with the same intent: to beg SATVEGA for some miracle solution against the inevitable fall of the Aoshanti Empire.

Their efforts were in vain. SATVEGA produced hundreds of strategies and predicted millions of outcomes, but none were favorable or feasible. Knowing this, many fled onward -- beyond the galactic rim, perhaps, or towards the core, where it was said imperial order still stood. Many more remained, feeding possibilities again and again into SATVEGA in denial and desperation. By the time Abzu fell, it was already too late to run.

Astrography
The Interregnum computer that houses the Pure sits at the heart of the Old Core, an infamous region of space in what was once the heartland of the Aoshanti empire. Dense with ruins, including the Imperial Seat and the Monad Gate, the Core is said to be deeply haunted. Ghost stories abound: sensor readings identifying ships where no ships exist, pristine derelicts identical to those used by the ancient Realm drifting utterly lifeless through space, mysterious transmissions found bouncing endlessly between collapsed megastructures.

Deeper inside the Core, it's said, one finds even stranger things. A dead world covered in perfectly spaced meter-high blocks, each one carved with an Aoshanti face. A mountain made of golden thrones that have melted and run together under the pitiless heat of a dozen orbital mirrors. A transmission frequency broadcasting a voice that does nothing but endlessly repeat numbers.

Explorers who delve too deep into the Old Core usually never return. Those who do return often appear to have committed suicide, coming back in undamaged ships completely vented of atmosphere, their databanks wiped clean.