If you just stumbled across this message, nothing of what I am
going to relate will make any sense. My advice? Don't read on,
kill this holofac now, don't go looking. You really don't want
to be involved, trust me. Just fly on like nothing happened.
People will kill you for knowing.

If you found this because you were led here... congratulations,
you must be reasonably smart.

I don't know what you were expecting, but this probably isn't
it. There's no payoff my friend, there's no money to be made.
You haven't won. You may have just made things much worse for
yourself. If there is any fame to be had it is what you make of
it, maybe some chronicler will immortalize you in the future.

...

I put this message in this system for a reason, the old lore
will tell you why. I'm not the first and I'm not the last. I'm
old now and it will soon be time for another to take my place.
Maybe it's her who has led you here. If she's anything like me
she'll be one feisty little lady, hope you had fun.

By now you'll have been to the hind-end of space looking for,
well... something. Guessing you found it. I make no apology for
all your trouble, you decided to go out there, same as me. I
don't know what tech you have in the future to make that voyage
a little easier, but I spent years following this, trying to
unravel it all and so did many others before me.

You weren't alone, suffering that boredom and loneliness in the
void. Don't expect any sympathy, no one told you to go. Decide
for yourself if you think it was worth it.

...

But I figure I owe you some kind of explanation. So here it is.

They know. They've known for decades, maybe centuries. There's
something out there and it's heading this way. Everything you've
seen; all the wars, all the investigations, all the abductions.
It's their way of getting stuff done, getting things ready,
keeping things quiet.

You don't build a fleet of warships for no reason - too many
questions get asked. So you manufacture a threat, you start a
phony war. You keep the populace amused with any diversion you
can think of. You play powers against each other, you boom and
bust the markets to tilt the economy. Anything to stop people
looking at the real issues.

...

Who are they? Don't go thinking this is the Feds or the Imps or
even the Alliance. It's way beyond all that. Most of what you
think you know isn't true. It's all a fabrication, woven by
those who have appointed themselves the protectors of humanity.
They've been keeping us all in the dark, hiding the truth,
secretly prepping for a confrontation.

If you're unlucky enough to stumble upon a part of it, they
simply remove you. A shadowy revolution that decides what to
reveal and when.

...

But that's not all they've done. They had all manner of
contingency plans drawn up over the years. Maybe they had a
premonition of failure. If you've got this far you'll have read
the old lore, you know there was a conflict with an alien race.
Yes them. You know what they were capable of in the past. Who's
to say what they could do now?

Our so called protectors thought the core worlds might be
overrun. Maybe we might need somewhere else to go. That's what
they were looking for out there in the void. Somewhere to flee
to, somehwere to run and hide. An Exodus, the Dynasty plan.

...

So they sent out ships, lots of ships, looking for earth-like
worlds in the far reaches of the galaxy. You know where, you've
been there. When they had that data they planned to kill the
crews and bury the missions. Some kind of suicide pact. No one
was supposed to know. Some of those poor souls managed to
survive for a few years it seems, marooned in the blackness,
but none of them made it home. If you're here you've probably
fond what was left.

But they didn't tell use lebs about this. No, not a word. They
claimed it would cause riots, panic and confusiong if the truth
ever came out. Maybe they were right. So they lied, time and
again.

But you can't lie for ever, truth is a dangerous thing.

...

I figured someone should know the facts one day. So now you have
it. What you do with it is your business. Could be they have let
you find this message, maybe the time is right at last. Maybe
there is nothing left to hide anymore. I don't know if I've
played them, or they've played me.

There's probably one last question burning in your mind. I know
I'd be asking it. How do I know all this?

That's simple. My memory has been shot to pieces, edited by them
and by me over the years. But I finally put it back together,
most of it anyway. Turns out I was one of them. I was part of it.
I helped them do it. Somewhere along the line I had an attack of
conscience.

Guess they didn't take too kindly to that. Here's hoping I made
a difference...

R.