"And in the years long to come, the stars will go by the billions, announcing the arrival of Entropy, unrivaled in it's finality; heralding the end of all existence, while the very quarks of reality are torn apart at the seams by the rip that will destroy the fabric of space and time. And no more shall any being gaze across the endless void."
-The Universe in Perspective,
Jaya Urvara,
Interstellar Aretecratic Union of Sapiency,
724 AT
It started with a single, isolated star.
Long since ejected from its origin galaxy, such 'orphan' stars are rare, but trillions can exist in any single galactic cluster. The Virgo cluster of galaxies, for example, has up to ten percent of its mass made up of such stars. Without a galaxy to call home, and invisible to all fortunate enough to exist within a galaxy, these orphan stars are unnoticed and ignored by the greater intergalactic community. Scant few of these are every discovered by the limited traffic which travels between galactic communities, and even less ever have some form of company in the shape of planets. The Void, for the large part, is empty, and to find a single star amongst the abyss should be considered a great reward, a once in a lifetime experience, so rare are they amongst the endless expanse of nothingness. They are few and far between, their limited brightness unseen amongst the endless black of the Void.
One, however, had drawn the attention of a traveller. Alone and without even planets to call company, this star sent out it's energy and power to the empty Void, and finally after billions of years of isolation, this star was no longer alone....
The chamber is almost entirely drowned in blackness, dead and empty. Even the light from the numerous control points reached no further than the seats in front of them, as if too frightened to venture forth into the chasm proper. The walls are barely visible, their tarnished black metal a mere ghost to the single figure in the centre of the chamber. His form is one with the walls of this room, his body perforated by cables and life support systems which extend his nervous system into the vessel he controls. This vast leviathan is his body as much as the eyes in his head. His legs disappear into the wall, and only his abdomen and head are visible, his arms extended from his sides as though crucified, the ends disappearing into sockets at the edge of the edifice on which he is splayed. His eyes are closed, he does not breath, his very essence and consciousness working to control the vast expanse of his artificial body. Billions of tons of metal, circuitry and superstructure all connected to this one individual whose very mind surpasses all but the most advanced artificial intelligence in power and ability.
He does not have a name. Not yet.
He can sense the heat of the burning light giver that sits near him, his metallic hide absorbing the bountiful energy the sun pours out into the infinite expanses of the blackness. Even as the flames jump from the hellish globe, a swarm of satellites surround it, collecting the heat and energy for use by Him and his larger mechanical self.
More...I...need....More...
Bursts of channelled fire seem to strike at the satellites, as though the star is lashing out at those who would abuse and steal its gifts. But the truth was far grimmer. As the gargantuan machine draws ever closer to its feast, the satellites which He has dispatched bleed the sun dry, consuming the precious elements within in short, controlled bursts. In small fragments, the star is being pulled apart and consumed, and as He draws closer the process quickens, His massive shape pointing towards the hellish bounty before Him and slowly extracting the sun's fuel, piece by fiery piece. The process will take days, weeks....months. But He has time. He has spent the past four decades alone in the Void, leeching resources from the few orphaned stars in the black expanse, absorbing and storing the energy to further His growth and the growth of His children. Soon it will be time for Him to begin again, to build another like him. A brother amongst His children. And then more stars will suffer, more stars will die, just as this one was dying, its very essence and fuel being stolen without mercy by the beast and it's satellite spawn, while thousands of kilometres away His children watched, their smaller and more vulnerable frames safe from the fury of the sun. But He was invulnerable, He was strong, and to this star He was God.
He continued to feed, the minimal bounty the star yielded to him and the satellites being scanned and checked for anything remotely useful. The process was painfully slow as the stars mass was collected and stored in the central satellite. For weeks the process continued until, without warning, the feeding stopped. The satellites returned to their bearer, leaving only one in orbit of the stellar light giver. A dread black cloud began to form, and the immense leviathan disappeared through it, its smaller brothers following close behind, disappearing into the broiling blackness, leaving only one piece of evidence behind, orbiting the star alone.
And then it vanished in a bright flash of brilliant white, and in its place was a small singularity. A 'lens' of sorts, ring shaped and yet small enough that it gave light and particles a chance to escape its pull.
The effect of the lens was immediate, and began slowly at first, then with gathering pace as the constituent parts of the star were torn from their home and flung out into space, emptying the star into the cold expanse of the void and a rate many thousands of times that of the satellites which had previously ruined the ancient sun. More and more of the stars mass was pulled through the ring shaped singularity and flung out the other side, dispersing into the endless black, unused and abandoned. And as this continued, the star protested and grew violent, as though screaming for freedom from the violator which tore it apart...
Orphaned stars are very difficult to see, as isolated as they are. Those within a galaxy have no hope of ever seeing one in their night skies, so rare and distant are they. And so no-one noticed as one was slowly drained of its life, torn asunder by the artificial singularity which orbited it. Piece by piece it was bled dry, and the star began to die. Within a short period of time relative to its uncountable years of existence, the star begin to falter, having aged billions of years in the short period of time the attacker had raped it and left behind their device to finish their cruel work. Not even the great beast remained to watch its last moments, and the vast distance to the nearest galaxy ensured that no other could either witness the end. No-one could see, no-one could notice, as the star flickered, exploded and died.
Alone.
The remnants of the supernova fade in due time, and the void falls silent yet again. For several months the blackness remains undisturbed, silent and empty, littered with the remains of the light-giver. And then space stirs, a great black cloud appears, small at first before exploding outwards. A violent storm rims a great blackness, flickers of black flame and lightning give the phenomenon the appearance of some hellish storm, growing with every passing second, before a huge metal demon pushes its way through, followed by its smaller children.
In his great chamber, the master of this titanic monster grins to no-one. The explosion has yielded a magnificent feast of resources for his insatiable appetite. His mind surveys vast light years of space in a second, taking in the entire area encompassed by the star in its final, explosive moments.
He begins to feed.
