Abandoned space I

The humans took to the stars, as the rest of the galaxy looked on in terror. The alien races had just not expected their rate of expansion, of advancement. When they had last visited Earth, the kings and queens and medieval knights that roamed the lands had seemed positively infantile, yet their thirst for blood, their love for war, proved an ominous development.

The next time they had looked, the humans were already in the stars, probing into other planets, creating vessels that would send them there. They had improved exponentially - no other race had ever seen anything like it.

And it dawned on them, through calculation and intrigue, that by the time a conquering force would reach Earth and its surrounds, the humans' technology would already surpass their own. Their rate of expansion, of improvement, far outshone what they could do on their own.

So they were left to choose; go out and be defeated, wait and be conquered, or flee into the unknown, leaving behind all that they held dear to avoid their inevitable demise.

And that was the option they took - retreating into the unknown, fleeing that which they had so foolishly mocked before.

Many years later, when humans, united as one and pacified, truly traversed the stars, they found countless civilizations abandoned, entire planets empty.

And they wondered what terrible catastrophe had occurred, and what giants had roamed these lands.