Fiction:Great Xonexian Schism/Orion War/Behind closed doors/Proselyter

After the death the Meta-Emperor, the Grox and their cybernetic allies who had remained in loyalty to their god were left in a state of paralysis. His death would not have even been known for 27 years if not for the pilgrims that were "called" by a mysterious voice to his resting place. Upon arrival, they found a disc of wreckage that formed from the collapse of his mainframe, the stars that supported it were being ejected and there was no sign of his "life".

The Grox loyalists had remained with the Meta-Emperor after his capture by Milky Way Cooperative, watching from a distance shrine linked by hyperspace communication. Before his capture, he had initiated the Grox Resurgence Wars, in which the Grox developed heavily to sweep through the civilised universe to return to their once-prominent status. Grox loyalists now lived comfortably in the Cooperative until their tragic loss.

From afar, these events appeared distant to the greater galaxy, but it would have a profound impact. A dispute between the Technoospheric Lords of the AI Netspace left allegiances of the Civilisation in tatters, between self-referential minds, the benevolent AIs who sought to develop mutual understanding between powers and finally the exploitive Lords who had manipulative goals. The dispute lasted a minute and was completely unnoticed even by inhabitants of the Technoosphere like the Grox loyalists. But the damage had been done.

The Grox had now clustered around their fallen god almost in total population, attempting to use all the science and mysticism they had to resurrect their leader. Some even suggested gathering cosmic string fragments orbiting the core to bleed out information from the black hole, but Technoospheric AIs warned that even virtual photons would melt filaments of such thinness required.

A year later...
A great disturbance in hyperspace erupted, and a voice returned once more to all the loyalists, claiming to be the resurrection of the Meta-Emperor. It claimed that he had been reborn in the galactic core of Ardenta, the Precursor name for the Andromeda galaxy. This did not actually convert all the loyalists, but polarised them. Many Grox had adopted new beliefs and denounced the voice as the The False God That Will Come, or just a trickster and believed that the Meta-Emperor would be reborn if they remained close. The other Grox believed it was their holy right to reach all the way to the core of Andromeda, though by peace, not force. These Grox became a moderate yet significant voice of the Civilisation that would splinter off and go rogue, and now under the manipulation of the unnamed exploitive Technoospheric Lords, would re-emerge.

But not to emerge as the Grox Empire reborn in any form, but something with far superior technology and intent.