The Dreadwar Prologue

The year 679 of the Confluence Era marked a pinnacle moment in the history of the Conglomerate. The interplanetary science communities were abuzz with speculation when the discovery was first announced and, as always, the scientist’s latest publication was met with harsh doubt and cynicism. But professor Haroca jin’Magar was a famous man with a reputation for accuracy as well as tenacity. In a time when the worlds were still recovering in the wake of the Revolution, his proposal was bold and resounding of potential.

He was a brilliant, eccentric man, known to shut himself away from society to emerge a year or so later with a ground-breaking manuscript about social reform or a tremendously thorough compendium of lore on all manner of topics. As an established scientist and renowned author, however, jin’Magar had paid good coin for his solitude. And in his isolation, a brilliant man could perform brilliant experiments, in fields of arcane science deemed "impossible" or "too dangerous to attempt by mortal man" if he so wished. But when diligence, genius and a touch of insane luck intersect, breakthroughs are often produced. Professor Haroca jin'Magar himself knew at once that this would change the face of the Conglomerate forever.

After nearly eight hundred years of mystery, the secret of the Rift Gates had at long last been understood to such a degree as to be replicated. For centuries, masters of the arcane sciences could not discern the nature and Gates. But a mystery they remained no longer. Furthermore, funding for the project was readily granted by the worlds' leading consortiums.

It is said that upon hearing the news, Professor Haroca promptly died of cardiac arrest, smiling. Few could be counted among those close to the professor, who, in spite of his many contributions to society, was infamous for his antisocial tendencies. Having no immediate family nor any remaining colleagues from his project, control over the operation was handed over to its greatest funding contributors.

So it was that the year 679 of the Confluence Era was marked by the creation of the Conglomerate’s first man-made rift and the death of the Conglomerate’s greatest mind. And with these events, there came the whispers of a new age.