Allophron was once a red giant star in the galactic ring-region, an unremarkable stellar body whose fourth planet would become ground zero for one of the most terrifying psionic threats encountered by the Endless Unity. The system's transformation began in 484 AF, during the height of the Traphon War, when the star underwent an impossible metamorphosis that would ultimately lead to its destruction.
The 'Ghost-Star' Phenomenon
The red giant of Allophron shifted to a pale white luminescence without corresponding thermal change. Those exposed to its light reported paradoxical cold sensations despite radiation levels sufficient to bake planetary surfaces. The star's most insidious property was immediate hypnotic effect—viewers became compelled to stare, losing all sense of time and self-preservation. Ships entering the system experienced gradual damage from radiation containing photons with Planck-length wavelengths, a physical impossibility that heralded deeper anomalies.
Direct exposure triggered rapid biological mutation. Victims transformed into gaunt, faceless humanoids with razor-tipped tendril-arms, capable of speech despite lacking mouths. These "enlightened" entities retained technical knowledge but turned it toward exterminating their former kin, organizing cults to worship the star as a living deity. The influence spread superluminously, affecting colonies light-years distant before optical delay should have permitted, suggesting the light itself became "corrupted" and transmitted the effect through the manifold.
The star demonstrated sapience, tapping into manifold communications to broadcast messages of its apotheosis and compel obedience. Victims viewing any real-time image, regardless of distance or filters, became entranced. After hours of exposure, they grew manic and paranoid, eventually gouging out their eyes before undergoing horrific mutations that defied biological possibility.
The Traphon Response and Unity Collaboration
The Traphon Stellar Empire, veterans of a similar incident twenty thousand years prior at Moradais, recognized the threat immediately. The Traphon High Chieftain Wisdom-Maker sought temporary truce with Endless Unity after the initial outbreak, a request Unity delayed for ten months as systems fell. By the time Unity agreed, five hundred inhabited systems had already succumbed.
For the next two years, Unity and Traphon researchers collaborated despite continued fleet skirmishes, developing countermeasures as the effect sphere expanded two hundred light-years across the quadrant. The solution required unprecedented industrial mobilization: the Advent of Night, a planetoid-scale antimatter warhead requiring multiple sectors' combined capacity and Traphon assistance.
The Advent of Night
This was the first true Inter-System Missile (ISM) ever deployed, representing a fundamental evolution in stellar warfare. This relativistic kill vehicle measured several times the length of a Unity-class warship, requiring months of manufacturing time and a significant fraction of the core sector's total industrial capacity to complete. Its development represented the apex of Unity engineering, incorporating technological contributions from Traphon scientists who assisted in manufacturing the separable warhead and enhanced sensor systems.
The weapon's fusion accelerator warhead was meticulously calibrated to induce stellar collapse. Unlike conventional antimatter weapons that simply release energy, the Advent of Night's warhead created a phased gravitic pulse that compressed the star's fusion core beyond its Chandrasekhar limit, forcing runaway nuclear reactions that bypassed normal supernova mechanisms. The Traphon contribution proved critical—their understanding of exotic matter states allowed the warhead to survive relativistic impact and detonate at precisely the correct depth within the stellar envelope.
At its core, the Advent of Night housed a fusion accelerator warhead—a device that compressed and ignited a deuterium-tritium plasma reaction with such force that it temporarily doubled as both power source and trigger mechanism. The warhead's containment chamber was a masterpiece of magnetic bottle technology, developed through collaboration with Traphon scientists who contributed their understanding of exotic matter states. What made the weapon truly unique was its calibration system: sixteen thousand individual gravitic lenses arranged in a phased array that shaped the fusion blast into a coherent stellar induction pulse.
The weapon's development consumed two full years and required mobilization of multiple sectors' industrial capacity. Unity's core shipyards dedicated 40% of their output to fabricating the missile's components, while Traphon foundries provided the gravitic lensing arrays and enhanced sensors needed for precision targeting. The warhead required seven months to assemble, with each gravitic lens calibrated to tolerances of less than 0.001%, as any variance would cause the stellar induction pulse to dissipate rather than concentrate.
Deployment required specialized infrastructure. The Advent of Night launched from Unity's Sector Zero shipyards in 489.42 AF. The missile's fusion drive ignited, accelerating it to 0.92c subliminal speed over three days of continuous burn and cruising at an average rate of 25,000c manifold speed. Targeting data streamed from orbital observation platforms, accounting for stellar corona interference and the star's own magnetic field fluctuations.
At 489.86 AF, precisely 14:32:07.443 standard time, the Advent of Night struck Allophron's core. The fusion accelerator warhead detonated milliseconds before impact, creating a gravitic lensing effect that funneled the missile's kinetic energy—equivalent to a small moon moving at relativistic velocity—directly into the stellar fusion reaction. The result was instantaneous: Allophron's core collapsed under the sudden influx of exotic particles, triggering runaway fusion that bypassed the normal supernova sequence.
The star's outer layers were ejected at 0.3c, creating a shockwave that vaporized all artificial structures in the system and fried psionic entities within three light-years. The psionic entity controlling the Ghost-Star phenomenon, a Gythian consciousness spread through stellar plasma, was annihilated instantaneously—its collective mind unable to survive the electromagnetic and gravitic chaos of stellar collapse.
The aftermath unfolded over months. Afflicted populations across two hundred light-years became catatonically insane as the psionic control network collapsed. Unity and Traphon fleets spent six months systematically exterminating the thralls, who were unable to resist or flee. Trapon warrior-castes performed mass executions as acts of mercy, while Unity's automaton legions swept through affected systems with methodical precision. The psychological toll on execution crews was severe—many required neural reprocessing after witnessing the catatonic thralls' silent acceptance of death.
Discovery of the Gythian
Subterranean sensors located the Gythian entity in 489.5723 AF. Unity researchers discovered an etntiy that would be known simply as "The Master"—a massive and ancient Gythian encompassed in biomechanical exoskeleton, injured but manipulative. Interrogation revealed Ghost Star was Gythian mission, led to rediscovery of Nethereal power.
Supreme Overseer Tylum Vosar ordered containment rather than destruction, establishing The Silent Eye station for study. The Master died months later without further intelligence, but not before Vosar underwent an experimental, ritualistic procedure codenamed "Psionic Sun", becoming first Unity psion in centuries. The transference changed her personality fundamentally, leading to assassination by Halon Aximor in 499.543 AF.
Containment and Quarantine
Following the catastrophe, @Allophron IV was designated Quarantine Alpha-One, the galaxy's most strictly controlled site. Unity's Prime Council authorized lethal force against any vessel approaching within one astronomical unit. Orbital platforms maintained continuous sensor coverage while planet-side patrols ensured no entity could access surface. The quarantine extended to information—civilian star charts omitted the system entirely, and military personnel required special clearance to even know of its existence.
The quarantine held through the War of the Chosen and remained intact during early Schism. However, as Great Schism fractured Unity's central authority, specialized forces maintaining Allophron watch were redeployed to immediate conflicts. By 1010 AF, the quarantine had become theoretical—on paper it remained active, but no functional patrols maintained it.
@Allophron IV Today
The planet drifts through interstellar void, a rogue world severed from its star. The antimatter detonation split the world along a crystalline fracture from pole to pole, with two massive hemispheres held in tenuous gravitational embrace. A ring of jagged asteroids—shattered crust—orbits this division, permanent memorial to the weapons that exposed the horror beneath.
Surface conditions are extreme vacuum with temperatures approaching absolute zero. Psionic contamination persists in crust, causing phantom signals and sensor ghosts that corrupt equipment. Psions report hearing whispers of the Master in their thoughts. Fracture walls show glassification from blast, smooth surfaces that hum with residual energy.
The Silent Eye station wreckage orbits between planet halves, hull showing psionic corrosion rather than physical damage. Laboratory modules contain preserved Gythian tissue samples in functional containment. Advent of Night assembly silo remains sealed under glassified rock, equipment theoretically capable of creating weapons of similar scale.
The planet is a little-known ruin housing exotic and potentially dangerous artifacts and phenomena. Powers that quarantined it have disintegrated during Great Schism, leaving it unguarded but not forgotten.