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Tens of thousands of<br />
centuries-old men and<br />
women died in the<br />
Terran-Hatchling War,<br />
sacrificing themselves in<br />
the hopes that humanity<br />
might survive. The few<br />
that managed to escape<br />
the conflagration were<br />
entirely dispossessed.<br />
Their dream training<br />
hadn’t included being<br />
updated on the society<br />
for which they were<br />
fighting. They were lost<br />
in the modern worlds.<br />
After the war, they<br />
wandered among the<br />
stars, trying to carve out<br />
a life for themselves in a<br />
society they didn’t<br />
understand. What’s<br />
more, they were regarded<br />
by most people<br />
with a mixture of anger<br />
and awe.<br />
16<br />
suddenly entered Prometheus at once,<br />
coming from the direction of our own Milky<br />
Way. The damage they did to the Draconians<br />
in the first months of their scourge<br />
was unbelievable. Entire Draconian-enslaved<br />
races were eradicated.<br />
Strange Bedfellows<br />
The Primates had not been long in the<br />
shackles of their servitude, and they instantly<br />
took the opportunity to rise up<br />
against their oppressors while their efforts<br />
were occupied elsewhere. The timing was<br />
perfect, and the Draconians were helpless<br />
to stop them. In fact, once the initial rebellion<br />
was over, word came down from on<br />
high that the Primates were to be lent any<br />
assistance they might require so that they<br />
could join the Draconians in the life-anddeath<br />
struggle to rid Prometheus of the<br />
Hatchling threat.<br />
Eventually, the Prometheans prevailed<br />
over the Grubs, but not before the Night<br />
Brood had seeded nearly every Promethean<br />
system with hibernating Clutches. It was a<br />
long and hard-fought war, characterized by<br />
the fact that, although they were facing a<br />
horrible, mutually aggressive threat, neither<br />
the Draconians or the Primates proposed<br />
any sort of alliance between their two<br />
factions.<br />
How the War Was Fought<br />
For the most part, the Draconians<br />
simply pulled out of<br />
what had been Primate space<br />
and left the people there to<br />
defend themselves. To them,<br />
the Draconian homeworlds<br />
(which included just about<br />
every system they’d conquered<br />
up until they’d met the<br />
Primates) came first, while<br />
those of the Primates were a<br />
distant second.<br />
Astonishingly, the Primates<br />
rose to the clarion call of<br />
battle, forming a vaunted<br />
military force within a matter<br />
of months. Unwilling to trade<br />
oppressors for killers, the Primates<br />
made the most of their<br />
newfound freedom, shortlived<br />
though they feared it<br />
might be.<br />
Eventually, the Hatchlings were defeated.<br />
During the war with the creatures,<br />
the Primates had learned much about the<br />
Grubs, and as the conflict eventually came<br />
to a close, they shared their knowledge with<br />
their ex-masters. They revealed to the Draconians<br />
that, although the Night Brood had<br />
been beaten back for the moment, they had<br />
by no means been entirely eradicated from<br />
Prometheus’s planets.<br />
They also demonstrated incontrovertibly<br />
that it had been the Sun Eater that had disturbed<br />
the creatures and attracted them to<br />
Prometheus, a galaxy previously clean of<br />
any such infestations. They went on to<br />
prove that not only would another such<br />
detonation probably spell the end of that<br />
galaxy, but just about any other large-scale<br />
conflict would incur Hatchling swarming,<br />
albeit on a much smaller level. The Primates<br />
were free of the Draconians’ control,<br />
and it would be difficult to subjugate them<br />
again, at least while the Hatchlings permeated<br />
the system.<br />
The Promethean Conflict<br />
Although the Draconians couldn’t make<br />
any military moves against the Primates on<br />
a large scale, they opted to keep attacking<br />
their former subjects on whatever level they<br />
could. In the initial battles, the Primates<br />
were hard-pressed to defend themselves,<br />
but the Hatchling presence bought them<br />
the time they needed to set up and fortify<br />
their defenses against the Draconian threat.<br />
The conflict became a war of attrition, each<br />
side picking away at the other in the hopes<br />
of achieving an eventual victory.<br />
Over the next few decades, few decisive<br />
victories were won by either side in the<br />
many battles that took place. The conflict<br />
became so much a part of daily life that each<br />
side began to focus portions of their energies<br />
elsewhere, the normal channels of<br />
military action being partially blocked. The<br />
Draconians turned their aggressive natures<br />
inward, focusing on inflicting even greater<br />
cruelties on their subject races.<br />
Back to the Stars<br />
The Primates channeled their excess energies<br />
more positively. They began their exploration<br />
program once again. This time,<br />
they had something greater than mere curiosity<br />
at stake.
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