Forrest Cameranesi Geek of all Trades

(6x07) The Magic of Antiquity: Part 3, Episode 1

Now years have passed. From his prison cell, Keius has a vision of Chancellor Goran concluding talks with the rebel leaders, signing a treaty with the fringe worlds, agreeing to transform the empire into a federation, devolving power to the individual worlds and giving each world a seat in the Quelouvan senate, now separate from the Ehrban planetary senate. The war is officially over. Keius' cell mates question him as to what he is smiling about, and he informs them that the war is over. They don't believe he could know this, of course. Later, word arrives from the treaty talks and Keius is released.

He travels back to Ehrba, and requests to meet with the Chancellor. Keius congratulates Goran on his successful management of this great crisis. Goran simply asks Keius what he plans to do now, and Keius reveals that he plans to search for the origin of his powers, somewhere on Ehrba. After Keius leaves, Goran contacts the Church of Geiana to warn them about Keius. Because of their religious training in mental discipline, Goran and his church cohorts are able to hide their thoughts from Keius; and though Keius knows, by their silence, that they are hiding something, he does not see it as his place to monitor the thoughts of those who would wish to keep them secret from him. Yet Goran and the Church are not so benevolent, and see Keius as a dangerous heretic or perhaps even something far worse.

Keius now has access to the collective memories of his entire ancestry, tracing back to times far before the Ehrban even evolved. He plans to use these memories to guide him on his quest. He meditates to recall the experiences of his ancestors, and then follows back the trail, retracing the evolution of the Ehrban further and further back in time, seeking the earliest of inherited memories, and hoping to find from them the site from which these mysterious nanites originated. He traces the memories of his ancestors back through the colonization of new worlds, back to the figurehead royalty which left Ehrba seeking real power on new worlds; back further into their history to the line of true kings which ruled their lands for for so long; back further before the advent of the Church of Geiana, to the great emperors who were worshipped as demigods, descended from the high god Meij himself. And still back further before those empires, to more primitive kingdoms, before the rise of the notion of 'gods', when Meij was only a great hero of the past, the great Dragon-slayer. And back, back further into the era of simple tribes, back further and further to the days of Meij the Dragon-slayer himself, who had united his kin for the first time and together driven back the savage beasts which had terrorized Ehrban kind for so long.

Next: The Magic of Antiquity: Part 3, Episode 2