Ancients

The Ancients

Several millenia ago, a proud and expansive empire reached its pinnacle. Subjugating and enslaving other advanced races, defeating all their enemies and colonizing worlds we have not even heard of, these things made them the most powerful and the only empire in the galaxy of FreeSpace.

But then, something happened what the Ancients had not been expecting and were not prepared for...

The Ancients met a powerful enemy, an enemy that was the last of their foes. A foe they did not understand: the Shivans. It was commonly believed all throught their empire that the Shivans are the cosmic destroyers who have the noble task of removing their greed empire and punish them for their crimes against all living creatures.
Little is known about the war itself, but what we know is enough...

The Shivans destroyed the heart and pride of the Ancients: their military fleet. Then, they bombarded their colonized planets with weapons nobody had ever seen... with weapons that are more powerful than any of theirs. It was no doubt they can only lose in this battle. The only question that remained: will we at least survive?

The answer came quickly...

It did not take much time for the Shivans to reach the Ancient homeworld and stab this race into the heart. By doing so, the Cosmic Destroyers sealed the fate of their enemy. The Ancients had little hope left for survival, albeit efforts had been made. They achieved results in their efforts, but they had no way to use their knowledge against their enemy.

More precisely, this knowledge made the Shivans defeated, but they were not the Ancients who delivered that blow.

They discovered the weakness in the Destroyers' defences, they found a way that could have saved their civilisation. But the Cosmic Destroyers were too powerful and when this information was discovered, it was already too late. The Ancients had been extinguished like insects and fleas. None of them survived. As far as we know...

Three thousand years later, the Cosmic Destroyers returned and once again, they threatened the Galaxy. They fought their way toward the homeworlds of their enemies. Once again. It seemed they would win the war and overcome their enemies again. But the Ancients managed to pass their knowledge to the future civilizations. What they knew three millenia ago brought salvation to two other races: The Terrans and the Vasudans.

The Shivans suffered defeat. The fact that who helped the most in defeating the [Shivans] is the question of aspect now. Did the Ancients help these two younger races or did they finish what the ancients had been unable to?

This debate will continue until the Shivans return and complete their revenge...