This is an ancient record, of dubious accuracy. Although the basic facts are undeniable, the actual details are obscure. What is known is that this entry dates from the early days of the Great Library, and that it was created by a race uplifted by the progenators themselves. The galaxy involved is no longer part of our civilisation, having departed soon after this record was made.
How sentience originally began in Galaxy nine, and most especially whether it originated independently of the Progenitors guiding wisdom, is a matter of dispute among the great ideological alliances, but since the Galactic archive contains no record of the historical truth, it is clear that our most wise ancestors considered the full explanation to be beyond the limited understanding of main-sequence species.
The Galactic histories do demonstrate one truth; deprived of the Progenitor's wise counsel, without even the limited consolation of the Galactic library, the prediscovery Galaxy nine civilization followed the natural course for all those so deprived, and utterly perished at great cost, incidentally demonstrating the perils of divergence from the hallowed Traditions left to us by the revered Progenitors. It is said that once the Progenitors had no concept of war, but when Galaxy nine was discovered it was immediately evident that it had been deliberately damaged by a sapient agency. The galaxy's central black hole had deliberately been fed with ten million stars, till it was once more the quasar it had been in its youth. Now its jets were bright enough to vaporize planets across a million light-years, as it slowly spun the galaxy was being scoured of all life.
But that was only the final, uncompleted stage of what clearly had been a campaign to cleanse Galaxy nine of all life. There were no white dwarfs left, every single one had been forced over the Chandrasekhar's limit so they went supernova, sterilizing most of the planets not yet vaporized by the quasar in the process, but everywhere there was evidence of the civilization destroyed by these disaster, a civilization that had clearly once rivaled the Progenitor's own in sophistication. On the dead worlds the Progenitors found many ruins, more drifted in deep space, and a few fragments were found near the supernovae, where the white dwarfs once had been. A few individuals of doomed species cowered deep underground and in heavily shielded space habitats.
From these ruins the progenitors pieced together the story of the self-destruction of galaxy nine. From whatever obscure beginnings, the cycle of uplift had begun in Galaxy 9. Clients were uplifted by patrons, who in their growing wisdom eventually retired. But when there were still only a very few retired species, they grew impatient for company. They still lacked the true wisdom that is gained through age, and were themselves not truly ready for retirement. Rather than waiting for their late clients, who were now the senior patrons of Galaxy 9, to attain wisdom by the same slow and unsure way as they themselves had, they decided they would immediately uplift all sapience in the Galaxy straight to the Retired order.
The patrons were forced to put aside their ancient enmities and submit themselves to the teachings of the Retired. For a time, this seemed to be working, but even the unfathomable wisdom of the Retired has limits, when not guided by the legacy of the progenitors. The former patrons had fully mastered Retired technology, but they lacked the wisdom only experience can teach. Bereft of the wisdom of the Progenitors, unlike the Retired of the four galaxies, the former patrons had not learnt the futility of violence. Once they were full members of the Retired order they resumed their old feuds. The original Retired attempted to stop them, but since there had been many more patrons (because it takes much longer for the retired population to reach equilibrium levels) they found themselves powerless to do anything but hide.
The ex-patrons went to war, mass uplifting entire biospheres to provide suitable troops, in much the same way as Organics created the Machine races during the first Oxygen-Hydrogen war. They soon took to destroying biospheres to deprive their rivals of resources. The war raged for several megayears until finally one alliance was victorious, though badly damaged. This alliance then constructed the quasar with the intent of destroying all potential rivals for all time. This was done before the Progenitors found the hyperspatial transfer points to the galaxy. It is presumed the Progenitors brought justice to the victorious alliance.
Since this time it has been decreed that Uplift shall always stop when a species reaches the main
sequence. Uplift is essential for pre-sapients to become mature patrons, but at all other stages it is not
merely unnecessary, it is positively harmful. (Many humans consider this special status for uplift to
sapience philosophically absurd.)
Robert Shaw , modified by Andrew Crystall in July 1999.
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