First rising empires

1749 years SHF

55005350402 system ticks have passed since the halo array fired and for the first ever time since the reseeding finished 54156211200 (1722 years) system ticks ago, Aura's installation received a distress signal from a non-forerunner ship. The signal was weak and most likely from a primitive radio but Aura's 2. and 4. situational directives activated, as while she was always scanning as many system as possible, she was only monitoring whether any semblance of the flood is present.

She immediately activated the teleportation system she crafted into her body and used it to teleport to the lifeworker ship available to her thanks to the librarian. She immediately connected herself to the ship and started steering clear of the hangar bay of the ring. When she was clear the ship immediately opened a slip space rift and went through, as of now she could only wait to get to the beacons location.

While the ship was traveling she was wondering which species was the first to have reached the point of space travel. The origin point of the signal was within the system in which the San'Shyuum home world was located. She wondered whether it was them or some other civilisation as while unlikely, it was still possible some others had gotten there first. It is possible they simply had yet to use a slip space drive as all slip space travel was closely monitored by the installations.

Her speculations which possible civilisations could have possibly achieved reliable long range space travel were however cut short when the ship silently dropped out of slip space. If she had not been interfaced and in direct control of the ship in a rare moment when she acted more like the ancilla she was than the person Aura that was the body she had created. If she were a normal forerunner passenger she would not have even noticed any difference in her environment.

It would be a truly historical moment as the first recorded time when the forerunner AI made contact with locals after the activation of the rings. She had often talked to the different specimens which were being safeguarded on her installation and had thus come to understand them a bit more without the reliance on her prerecorded data about their species.

She activated the outer hull cameras and zoomed in on the tiny craft which had sent out the signal. She scanned it with all available instruments and prepared a bay to receive the craft while sending out sentinels to retrieve it.

She in fact detected living San'Shyuum onboard.

Sn'Shyuum captain POV

We were betrayed. We were supposed to be explorers of the planets in our system by the will of the hierarchs and yet they betrayed us, using our dedication to find out more about our gods and halo to get rid of us. We had always been against their regime which was not solely focused on the discovery of more information about the forerunners. They were opposed by many but our voices were the loudest as one of the most innovative people on our planet and part of the ones who had first realised our dream of going to space to explore. The hierarchs said we would be sent on a mission on the craft we designed ourselves and sent to explore the other worlds of our solar system.

When we were 18 days out from our destination, the second planet from the sun in our system, a malfunction occurred, and yet it was strange. The malfunction was exactly the same as the one i had eliminated on the previous model and made sure it would never happen again.

And so we were left in space, floating with no control over our craft and we would meet our end in a few months when we crashed into the planet we were headed to, or so we thought. Despite it being obvious that the hierarchs had sabotaged us we still sent the distress signal but what happened next was something none of us expected.

A giant portal opened a few kilometres ahead of us and we could not believe our eyes at the sight of the ship that exited it. It was identical to the one we gleamed all of our technology from! 14 kilometres long a tetrahedral shape with a forward triangular prow, and attached to it at equidistant points are three similarly shaped struts, to help ground the ship. It was a glorious grey and we could not believe our eyes when smaller vehicles detached and started hauling our ship towards an open hangar bay.