For eons, I and other members of my race have stood on the ramparts of Creation and beheld its limitless glories. We have seen vast empires rise and fall, entire civilizations reach the heights of majesty, and others descend into rank barbarity. We have seen old gods die and new gods born, the pantheons shudder and the heavens shake. We have tracked the path of every electron in every atom, and pondered the abyss of infinity. To our unflinching gaze, even the stars and galaxies are but ephemeral dancers, shining brightly for a time, pirouetting so gracefully, and then slowly exiting the stage, resisting, but never escaping the incessant pull of entropy, time and destiny.

     And in our own way, nor do we.

     For we have seen again and again that very little lasts forever. Thus, our most sacred duty is to the future; to those who will come after us and build upon the foundations that all of us alive now are constructing. To them, we can give no better gift than insight into the times that are forging the universe that they will someday inherit; insights shorn of bias, comforting fallacies and deceptions. Insights made possible by our greatest vow: That we can never interfere or involve ourselves in the events we record. We have abdicated our role in shaping history in order to safeguard its essential integrity. Without that, history capers to the whim of tyrants and fools; its power and majesty forever blunted.

    We will not allow that.

    Thus, while we no longer mold the future, we shall make sure that those who do are remembered accurately: Their actions, whether glorious or infamous, unfettered by deception and allowed to resonate throughout eternity in perfect clarity.

    Thus, our charge is nothing less than to observe and chronicle the unfolding of reality in all of its magnificence and terror. It’s light and it’s darkness. It’s hope and it’s despair. And nowhere is this calling more important than in this galaxy, at this time. This, the cradle of the race that will one day decide the very cast of all Creation, for good or for evil, at The Circling Sky.

     But that, of course, is the future.

     And to understand that future, one must first see the disparate threads that come together to weave it--all the myriad impulses and factors that churn and struggle. Some are obvious. Some are not. But to discern them all, one must be patient.

     And one must watch.

     One of the most obvious threads is, of course, the series of events set into motion by the Fourth Galactic War.