[OOC: Bad pseudoscience ahead, consider yerself warned.
]
Genesis
- Premonition
The conditions on the nameless planet were calm, as always. Small fish, the only lifeform on the planet, swam around in the seas, slowly developing into what would be called 'sentient life' over a span of a few hundred million 'Earth' years. Fending for their own survival, and debatably acting without any motives whatsoever, the primitive life forms were happily oblivious to the events that'd soon alter this section of the galaxy forever.
The tiny metal spheres, sitting in a bubble of vacuum a few kilometers underground, looked distinctly out of place. Whether they were an artifact of some long-gone race or just something accidentally left behind wasn't clear, but they were clearly crafted of a material alien to this world. The crude force field powered by a tiny reactor for the Last few million years was still working, though, protecting them from any perceived harm. Then, suddenly, it started...
The power level of the force field dropped below the safety threshold and sounded a warning on several unknown frequencies to absolutely no effect. After waiting a few seconds and getting no response, the central core of the tiny device lit up and the bubble-shaped force field collapsed into the form of a slender arrow, the spheres still sitting inside safely. Then, using up the Last bursts of its energy reserves, a tiny high-explosive charge at the base of the arrow propelled it up to the surface, the force of the explosion carefully calculated to make the arrow pop out of the ground and remain there. There the shield disengaged as the device finally powered down.
With a loud 'POP' the vacuum around the spheres cleared, and they started to sizzle with energy as they came to life. Sending out strong signals in many different directions, they definitely would've alerted any sentient race in the surrounding systems - if there were any there to begin with. Instead, something unforeseen by even the mysterious aliens happened...
- Darkness
The entity that called itself 'Orz' resumed its search. A thought similar to "what's that weird noise?" surged through its highly alien neural structure, taking on many forms of expression as the smaller neural subnetworks re-interpreted the situation over and over again, proposing possible solutions and pointing out that such a phenomenon was never encountered before by the entity. As the pulses of energy darted to and fro on its gigantic body, the creature scanned the surrounding area via its various perceptors. Had anyone with four-dimensional perception looked at the scene, it would've looked bizarre... a completely black space, no sign of matter anywhere other than the gigantic being, its fractal-shaped body the size of three solar systems.
The being froze, as if something startled it; then it zoomed at unbelievable speed towards an invisibly tiny blot of light in the distance. The space it was speeding through was completely black and empty and somehow much less 'dense' than one'd think. After reaching that unusual light source, it appeared to be a tiny 'window', about 100 sq meters in size, barely enough for the giant to notice its presence even up close. Through the window was seen a most unusual sight to the entity: a much more dense space with meteorites, dust and lots of stars dotting the background. And a planet, emitting strong signals of every type, some travelling straight through this spatial rupture.
The entity didn't hesitate. After several hundred million years spent in this plane, it was eager to discover something...anything different. Focusing some of the immense energy contained within, it enlarged the rift to a respectable 100 sq kilometers in the blink of an eye and thrust one of its tentacle-like appendages through it in the same time-frame. However, enlarging the gate severely limited its lifespan and it collapsed in a matter of seconds. Then all was still again.
- Eclipse
The prehistoric fish lazily swimming around in the ocean didn't notice the white hole appearing in the sector. It wasn't an unusual occurence in this area of space for a tiny one to appear for several minutes, then evidently collapse after spewing some space junk into a system. However, this one was different. In a matter of seconds it enlarged to a gigantic size and a weird tentacle-like thing burst through, lashing out at the planet with a section detaching, thinning itself and expanding to several hundred kilometers' length. As the main part entered the atmosphere, it flared up as a section was burnt away, the neural systems nearby working hard to develop a shield to combat this new phenomenon never seen before. After a few nanoseconds the consensus was made, and the billions of cells already in the atmosphere absorbed a sizeable amount of the gasses, still in mid-flight. This rapid thinning of the atmosphere threw the ecosystem of the planet way off balance, but in a few seconds it wouldn't have mattered anyhow.
The detached section formed into a drill-like sliver, shimmering with energy and it penetrated the crust of the planet with ease, finding its way to the core and then freezing it with an insanely high energy output. A few minor earthquakes and soon enough the planet was 'dead' by nearly all definitions. All this took but a few seconds as more of the tentacle pushed through the rift, then suddenly the white hole couldn't take the abuse anymore and collapsed upon itself, severing the tentacle. No longer having access to the immense energy reserves of its host, the tentacle wavered, then dissolved into quantillions of individual cells, all of them gravitating toward the planet.
- Ascension
The cells, once there, formed smaller symbiotic organisms trying to adapt to this strange new world. Taking on the form of the primitive life forms found frozen in the seas of the planet, the standardized entity organized several effector cells with a fin-like appereance, two perceptors looking vaguely like eyestalks, a nerve cell for communicating with others of its kind and a protective shell all around, made of various minerals found on the planet. Other entities constructed machines from the materials found there - a novel concept to them, but fully logical to their enhanced intellect - to help harness the world's resources, again others focused on studying this world in order to best utilize it. Still staying in contact with each other via their still-existing four-dimensional perceptors, they set off to make use of this galaxy as well as possible, trying to harness its resources and open another gate to let the entire entity into this space. Their first impressions governed their decisions rather heavily - no longer having access to the immense energy reserves, they couldn't tame anything other than planets already frozen over and they equated any kind of atmosphere with the only source of 'death' they've encountered so far. It soon became necessary to make mechanical constructs that'd travel fast enough in space - while any of the entities could certainly travel in space at will, it proved to be rather slow and ineffective. Thus the entities specialized further.
A portion of the 'researchers' found the mystical spheres quickly and constructed machines that'd help determine its origin or workings. Results were achieved soon enough - as if the mysterious aliens wanted these spheres to be accessible - and it turned out to be some kind of visual transceiver. Of course the Orz (they all perceived themselves as autonomous, but still a part of the extradimensional entity called 'Orz') had a hard time understanding its workings, but it was apparent that it showed other parts of the galaxy, if a bit erratically. It was a rather great shock for the Orz to have found evidence about other sentient races existing, after having spent hundreds of millions of years in solitude, believing itself to be the only creature in the known universe. A decision was made quickly enough -- these entities must be contacted and their help enrolled for bringing Orz into this part of the universe. Thus began the search; yet the Orz didn't know that just as they could see the other races, so were they seen after their messy arrival upon the planet.