5010. The Great Severing The evening' of the second day finally rolled in. The residents of Davute VII actually had to wait until late in the night before the Big Two broadcasted their historic announcement. The local time of the planet was not precisely synchronized to standard time. In any case, a lot of humans in Davute and elsewhere had stopped what they were doing' in order to witness the MTA and CFA's first public address since the galactic displacement event. They were bound to reveal a lot of shocking and explosive information! Ves already had a good idea on the topics that the Big Two planned to mention this time, but most people including his wife should still remain in the dark. The unrest across human space in the new frontier had subsided to a remarkable degree. This was the power the Big Two had over contemporary human society. From the poorest third-raters to the most powerful Terran or Rubarthan, each of them had to respect the MTA and the CFA's hegemony over the human race! This condition did not change after the galactic displacement event. Whether it would remain so in the future was anyone's guess, but for now the Big Two still remained in charge! "Papa-" Ves smiled indulgently at Aurelia as he put her on his lap. "Are you feeling well, my dear?" His oldest daughter nodded. "I feel stronger than yesterday! I have grown more hungry as well." "That is good." He replied. "That means your body is adapting more to the change in environment than many other people." Andraste looked even more enthused. "I'll become an even stronger warrior after 1 absorb the new galaxy's rays!" Ves coughed. "It's not that simple. Not everything that comes from M87 is necessarily safe or benign. Besides, everyone will get stronger, not just you, pumpkin. You still need to work hard if you want to stay on top of everyone." He continued to chat with his kids until the time of the announcement had finally come. A large projection came to life in the underground living room. It first displayed the two familiar emblems of the Big Two. The mere sight of them was enough to reassure a lot of humans! After that, the projection switched to displaying a simple metal chamber that was typically used to hold press conferences. The chairs in front of the podium remained empty. No journalists or other guests had been invited at this time. The air shimmered for a moment before two new figures teleported into place. Gloriana gasped first. "That is the Lord of Thermodynamics! He is one of our oldest Star Designers, and one of the first to emerge!" "Ohhh." Marvaine looked fascinated. "How old is he, mama?" "His Excellency Hendrick Polt is over 450 years old! He was born at the end of the Age of Conquest. He is one of the great pioneers of mech technology alive today. His work on increasing the performance of power reactors is a large reason why most mechs but especially first-class ones have become so strong!" It took great accomplishments in order to gain such an impressive title! "Who is the other guy?" Andraste asked. "I know him. He should be Fleet Admiral Stanley Argile." Ves replied. "He is the man in charge of the CFA Second Main Fleet. It is the strongest whole fleet that the CFA has transferred to the Red Ocean." "Is he just as old as the Star Designer?" "No. He should be around 330 years old according to the record. He's relatively young." While the MTA and CFA did not believe in centralization, they had chosen their representatives well. Both the Lord of Thermodynamics and Fleet Admiral Argile possessed enough power and prestige to speak on behalf of their respective organizations. Ves was not surprised that the MTA did not put forth a god pilot. A figure like that would be so overpowering that no one would pay any attention to the poor CFA fleet admiral! The Star Designer spoke first at this time. Though old, his voice held a gentle and reassuring quality that inspired a lot of stability in people's minds. "Humans of the Red Ocean. Our lives have changed forever. Yesterday, a pan-racial indigenous organization called the 'Red Cabal' implemented a radical plan to counter our invasion and save their native civilizations from extinction. A group of powerful ancient phase whales have presided over a grand working that borrowed the strength of all of the phasewater in the Red Ocean to teleport nearly the entire dwarf galaxy away from the Milky Way Galaxy. The aliens have succeeded in their aims." "The Red Ocean and everyone inside it have landed over 50 million light-years away." Fleet Admiral Argile continued in a more severe and forceful It is no secret that our dwarf galaxy has landed over several hundred thousand light-years away from the supergiant galaxy known to us as Messier 87. This is a location that is far beyond the reach of humans in the Milky Way. They do not have the means to send a starship to our new location or establish a connection to our greater beyonder gate. At the same time, we do not have the technology or the resources to establish a transportation channel that can bring us back to the Milky Way." Ves and many other people already suspected that this was the case, but to hear it was another matter! The Lord of Thermodynamics projected a diagram that showed two dense clusters of lines. "The event that we have designated as 'the Great Severing'1 has destroyed most, but not all of our intergalactic communication lines between our- human brothers and sisters that we have left behind. The Comm Consortium's intergalactic quantum communication nodes may have lost connection to their paired nodes in the Milky Way, but this is not our sole means of FTL communication across the stars." That was big news! The Star Designer's words encouraged a lot of people. They were not alone! Remaining connected to the Milky Way not only gave them a chance to keep in touch with their distant family and friends, but also gave them access to other forms of support! The fleet admiral spoke up again. "We are still able to maintain limited contact with humanity in the Milky Way. I should emphasize that we are only able to transmit data, not goods or people over these remaining communication lines. The bandwidth that we have left is only a fraction of what we have before. For the time being, intergalactic communications shall remain closed to the general public. The Common Fleet Alliance and the Mech Trade Association must fully reserve the bandwidth that we have left to facilitate essential technological data exchanges. We may consider the possibility of offering private individuals the ability to transmit and receive short messages to the Milky Way in exchange for CFA merits or MTA merits." Ves sighed in relief. His connection with Veronica was not the only means for the people of the Red Ocean to remain in touch with the main human civilization in the Milky Way. He had thought about exposing this capability to the Survivalists if it turned out that the Red Ocean was completely cut off from the Milky Way. It may have been important for him to hide his trump cards, but when the survival of everyone in the new frontier was at stake, he was obligated to step up and offer his services! Now that they addressed their remaining connections to the Milky Way, the two powerful leaders finally turned to their current circumstances in their new cosmic neighborhood. The Lord of Thermodynamics projected a map that depicted all of the nearby galaxies. "This is the region of space that astronomers have called the Virgo Cluster since ancient times. It is much more densely populated by galaxies and matter than the Local Group that the Milky Way belongs to. Messier 87 may appear to be located in a relatively calmer region, but that is because it is a cosmic superpredator that has already cleared many of its neighboring galaxies." The projection changed to a depiction of a smaller galaxy that slowly became larger and messier after 'colliding' and merging with a chain of other- galaxies! "The reason why Messier 87 not only contains many more stars but has also acquired an elongated ball shape is because it has merged with multiple galaxies. This has caused it to produce many differences compared to a more conventional galaxy such as our Milky Way. The most impactful change to us is that it contains far greater resources and energy than we previously came in touch with. M87 may not look that much larger than the Milky Way, but do not overlook the former's large quantity of stars located 'up' and 'down' the galactic plane. The new galaxy is over 200 times as massive as the old galaxy. Its dense gasses and energies are so concentrated that we are still affected by them in our new position." The Star Designer dumbed down his explanation to a huge degree in order to make his explanation digestible to the general public. There was no way the legendary Lord of Thermodynamics talked like this when he was engaged in his work! That was fine. Ves was sure that the Big Two would publish a more detailed and scientific report on their virtual portals after the conclusion of this announcement. The projection zoomed into the center of M87 to depict its famous black hole. This was the first supermassive black hole that humans visually imaged! "You may not have a good understanding of what it means for us to be located so close to such a dense and massive galaxy." Fleet Admiral Argile said. "This is Powehi, the Embellished Dark Source of Unending Creation. It is one of the most massive supermassive black holes that our civilization has detected. It has devoured an unknown amount of other supermassive black holes to the point where it has become a cosmic behemoth. Not only is it massive enough to capture our Red Ocean in an orbit around M87, but it is also firing two powerful jets of matter and energy." The projection changed to show how the black hole was sucking up a lot of surrounding matter while also ejecting it from its 'top' and 'bottom'! "The Dark Source is discharging a large amount of matter and energy in two directions at relativistic speeds." Hendrick Polt explained. "One of the jets is pointed away from our Red Ocean is less visible. The other is pointed in a direction that is much closer to our new position. We are far from intersecting this jet, but if you can see closer, the matter and energy that eventually dispersed at the end continues to disperse and drift outwards until it engulfed the satellite galaxies that happen to orbit in this general region in this cosmic period. This encompasses the Red Ocean's new coordinates." Aurelia, Andraste and Marvaine all looked confused. "What does that mean, papa?" Their youngest asked. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢 "The Red Ocean is constantly getting blasted by M87's gigantic exhaust smoke." Ves succinctly explained. "At least we didn't end up in the middle of its engine plume. That would have killed us all in an instant." The Lord of Thermodynamics adopted a severe expression as he faced his audience. "The jet of matter generated by the Dark Source pointed closest to our dwarf galaxy will be the cause of untold dangers and hardship, but it is also our greatest opportunity to rise again as a race and a civilization. This is because the jet effectively delivers a small proportion of the exotic energies and particles that are abundantly present in Messier 87. If we harness these new resources correctly, we can advance our technology by leaps and bounds and greatly strengthen our forces! There is no need for us to surrender our dignity as a dominant species!" Those were encouraging words! The Star Designer essentially stoked everyone's hope by telling them that their situation was not completely hopeless. With the help of M87's 'exhaust smoke', humanity of the Red Ocean still had a chance to survive any potential hostile contacts with the new galaxy's powerful aliens!