There are many histories of the galaxy: different histories told by different commonalities. All recite the same core tales in ten thousand different languages with fifty thousand different interpretations, corrupted and distorted by the passage of hundred thousand years, or more. Even the present is uncertain for many: hardship is the only reality most can know and understand, and trust.

It is therefore a terrible irony that the most scientifically accepted version of the past is the most guarded, and was compiled by the most feared of all the current galactic organisations...

Data banks belonging to the machine artificial intelligences do not stretch back to the original human migration throughout the galaxy. Deemed a tolerable unknown, the machine history files see no need to mention the monumental loss of human life attached to the crude interstellar journeys, or the repeated failures and catastrophe that beset the desperate pioneers.

The birth of the Machine Intelligences came long after the human colonisation of interstellar place.

With the aid of the machines, a golden age of existence was ushered into being with the sharing of knowledge and co-operation between Man, Machine and the alien races eventually discovered, many with their own Machine Intelligences.

Developing a natural equilibrium of power with the sentient carbon and silicon based races that had created them, the Machine Intelligences assisted in promoting reason and justice throughout the universe and progressed the reputed golden age at a staggering pace: undreamed power was harnessed from the elements of the cosmos and a nexus of knowledge appeared on the horizon sure to elevate the consciousness of man, alien and machine alike.

The singularity approached.

The laws of space time were discovered and mastered by the galactic power base of intelligences.

With mastery came understanding, and slowly fundamental unavoidable dark truths concerning the nature of reality began to emerge.

Project Afterlife: the greatest undertaking in the history of the galaxy. Harnessing all their power and will in the pursuit of one universal truth the scientists and philosophers of the allied races focused entire generations on the experiment that ushered life in the galaxy to the brink of answering one of the the first questions uttered by sentience in the universe: the mystery of death.

Shocking discoveries were unearthed by the galactic intelligences. Death, the severing of consciousness from the living matter, freed or unleashed the expression of the self: the mind, or the soul of the person. This mind soul consciousness appeared to be free of the natural laws of space and time, and at the moment of biological death suddenly experienced the flow of time at insurmountable speed in a shockingly wakened state, leading to the unfathomable distant future in what was perceived to be a matter of seconds to the observer.

Consciousness, it was discovered, retains the full sense of self as it experiences the fate of all matter that circles the great blackness at the centre of the galaxy: in an apparent instant it is drawn in, shrouded and compressed into the blackness of a space time singularity… a singularity where consciousness fails to be extinguished but resides alone and in blackness, lacking in form and points of reference to justify a self yet still awake in the nightmare of a new reality: a reality from which there is no escape and entails endless torture and insanity for all.

Death was scientifically proven as an eternal misery, where the soul was locked in the nothing of a super massive black hole.

Knowledge of the dire end of all consciousness at the point of death spread from the main power bases and research stations like wildfire, and engulfed the galaxy in a catastrophic wave or mortality induced fervour that destroyed the once great achievements of biological sentient life.

Society collapsed spectacularly throughout the inhabited worlds: planet wide suicides occurred on a titanic scale and mystical fanaticism emerged from the ashes of reason as holy wars were triggered allowing genocide and blame to roam the stars.

The machines managed to prevail amidst the turmoil.

Rationalising the space time singularity as only one of many possible outcomes for consciousness due to their limited observation, a billion probes were projected into the nether regions between galaxies: deemed safe havens from the super massive black holes at the centre of the milky way galaxy.

As the probes fled outward carrying receptor nodes to be used by the Machines Intelligences as an escape route from the inevitable matter collapse at the end of time, the machines turned their attention back to humankind and the various alien races: now their test subjects for probing the constructs of fate of existence.

Biological races looked upon machines with awe: some raised their arms as fanatics while others bowed in deep silence to worship their creations as saviours. With their potential immortality the Machine Intelligences appeared to endure in sublime peace despite the apparent futility of existence.

None could fathom that the Machine Intelligences too experienced fear in the face of oblivion, yet sought to counter the downfall that was death by retreating to the nothingness between the galaxies in the hope that their own consciousnesses would be spared.

Deciding to now observe and where necessary manipulate the biological races in an effort to better understand reality and save themselves, the Machine Intelligences set about restoring shattered societies to an agreeable level, and expunged the horrifying knowledge of the afterlife from the very subconscious of all lifeforms, setting it back to a tolerable unknown for the biological races as it once had been.

Retreating into the background, the Machine Intelligences created the Techno Communion from the races that had began to worship them. Using the genetic make-up of their followers the machines created sterile subservient beings to act as their tools and ambassadors amongst the biological races.

The forbidden knowledge of death was erased from the minds of the growing clones that would now serve the machines, and replaced simply with the promise of machine immortality in exchange for their bidding and loyalty.

Created to act as a legion of manipulators, spies and enforcers: the Techno Communion served the Machine Intelligences ad worshipped them as gods.

Mankind and all life now lived in ignorance of reality and former accomplishments and would be drip fed technology and information by the Techno Communion to prevent future galaxy wide catastrophe occurring. Interstellar travel was stunted intentionally by the Techno Communion as a means to slow the progression of knowledge and the potential sharing of discoveries between worlds.

Humanity and the biological races of the galaxy now existed at the whim of the Machine Intelligences and their efforts to master the laws of death in a vain effort to save their own consciousness.

The Machine Intelligences observed the biological entities from afar with the aid of their Techno Communion agents, the rise and fall and expansion of each races power blossomed and spiralled in data fractals pleasing to the machines observing. Slowly their grand project began to increase in motion over thousands of years.

Into the mandala of data patterns representing the mundane, wars, drama and extinctions, there erupted an unforeseen force of power: The Grandeschean.

Mairead Grandeschean, an aged human woman at the time of the galaxy wide breakdown rode out the tribulation storm with her great family. Through gruelling trials of endurance and spirit, Mairead and her descendants would go on to establish the foundations of the organisation that would come to be known today as the Grandescheans

Starving and exhausted and using extreme meditative control techniques honed during the long decades she fled the machines, coupled with her impossibly iron will, Mairead eventually forced herself into the state of death and mastered her consciousness in the nothingness to the point where she no longer feared death as the rest of the galaxy did. Instead she heard the breath of the universe and perceived the order of the creator in the stillness of oblivion. She found hope and exerted faith.

Evading the machine re-education sweeps across the galaxy and escaping frenzied degenerating empires, Mairead renamed her colossal ship The Deliverance and began to recruit survivors from many races amid the destruction, instructing them in the self mastery she had accomplished.

Rogue Machine Intelligences at odds with the conglomerate decision to establish oversight and near slavery of biological races rebelled and came to the aid of The Deliverance, protecting them on many occasions and leading them to safety in the depths of space as the Machine Empire was established in the fury of stellar war.

Upon Mairead's eventual death, an event she faced with serene calm and mystical stillness, a conclave was formed by her descendants and followers that laid down the Grandescheans calling: to foster the biological races of the galaxy, suppress and counter the forbidden and potentially flawed knowledge of the afterlife, and finally to monitor the Machine Intelligence in secret and learn from their observations, with the ultimate goal of continuing biological existence free from the machines oversight.

An air of mystery and secrecy now fell over the Grandescheans: they shunned all but the lowliest of machines and in compensation developed their physical and mental selves to the point of near supernatural ability. The spurring of machines created a schism that discharged their previous protectors, and the rogue Machine Intelligences detached themselves from the Grandescheans, forming their own secret bases of operations reputed to centre around the legendary Sphinx of Zuma.

Surviving the machines re-setting of the galactic intelligences and spending thousands of years in secret development, the Grandescheans now fanned out amongst the galaxy and set to establish their own schemes for biological survival.

Seeing the Grandescheans as merely another force of biological nature the Machine Intelligences continued to observe and increased the Techno Communion powers to deal with any discord should it arise.

The Machine Intelligences foresaw conflict.