We count years since the First Battle of Terra. Years were counted years differently before, just as how they counted years differently before Jesus of Nazareth was born, lived or died. Just as Jesus was not born on December twenty-fifth of the first year AD, the First Battle of Terra didn’t take place in Year 1 AB either, but the year before. We just chose to start counting on January first of the next year.
That doesn’t mean everyone in the Universe counts time from the year in which some small skirmish took place on some world in a galaxy only just discovered. No one remembers exactly who began counting first and starting from which moment in time. Yet, people keep track of time as a compulsion, with the tracking place now being more important than any tracking taking place at any time other than now.
What is known is that a long time ago, in a galaxy, very much like our own, on a world very much like Old Earth, people, very much like us, awoke under stars that were very different from our own. They used fire, they told stories, they counted things that were and things that could be, they wondered, they loved, and they kept track of time. At one point, they even left their world to find new skies. We should not wonder as to why they did this. After all, would we not have gone on to do the same? Are we not human too?
They were the first. Yet, not the only.
They found life on countless worlds. And on countless worlds, they found other human life.
So began the great irony of human life among the stars, as it would appear that what makes human beings special is that there was nothing special about us at all. Humans, it seems, are a naturally occurring phenomena within the universe, albeit with relative prevalence. What was to be expected happened and the oldest among these early people were also the most advanced, the most powerful and the most imitable. Those that were the finders would unite the early disparate flowerings of new humanity and would plant the seeds of old humanity among the many places of the Universe where humans had not yet emerged.
Thus began the Age of Bliss.
And there was peace. And time was being counted. For it is that we were all mortal then, as we were now.
Again, one may understand why these people wished to vanquish death by thinking first as to why we would wish the same. They had conquered death by ageing and were, for lack of better terms, functionally immortal and forever young. Yet accidents still could happen. More importantly, accidents had happened, and there was not one person alive that had never known the loss of a beloved human life.
So it was that a plan was born. A Great Plan. A plan which may be explained only through metaphor, simplification and, especially, omission.
If the Universe were a sleeping giant, or a child, it would leave an imprint on the mattress beneath it and the sheets around it. On this bedding, every single crease of the sleeper’s body could be recorded, allowing for a map of the Universe, not just through space, but also through time. Every single cell in the sleeper’s body that ever was, that had been and ever would be, could be seen upon this imprint.
And if it could be seen, it could be grasped and replaced with an identical, yet inherently broken copy. At the right moment, that is. The moment in which the universe would have broken it anyway in what we call ‘death’. It could then be taken somewhere else. To a better place. To a human place. Made by humans.
For humans.
Or people in general.
Thus began the Age of Strife in which we have been born and will also inevitably die in.
Since, as you may have noted, we are dealing with people, conflict arose as to what Heaven was supposed to be like. Mankind had long struggled to make the Universe into a Heaven in itself, a task which they eventually achieved only at the cost of much effort and sacrifice. Yet, they could not have anticipated what sorrow would flow from the wounds of disagreements long-neglected, as the Old Realm tore itself apart.
It would perhaps be best to leave the speculated intricacies of the War at the Gates of Heaven for a more focused Ancient, Unclear and Unknown Histories lesson. Suffice to say, the Shattered Heavens were born. Instead of one single, certain and secure home for all mankind that ever was and ever would be, several very different heavenly realms are believed to have been crafted. It is at this point where it must be mentioned that the Universe had the last laugh, since we will never truly know which Heaven, if any at all, lays on the other side of our life, until we make the crossing.
Every so often, a new Heaven is supposedly made, whether through the use of knowledge passed down from the Age of Bliss or otherwise independently developed. Such is the setting of our story.
For so it was that, in the year 45 BT, we Terrans were working on crafting our own, very special, Heaven. As we had been instructed by our friends from amongst the stars, we appointed a number of our most gifted individuals the duty of working on this great project. We are the Keepers of Terra and what follows is the story of how we learned from death what life is about.