No competition, no progress. That simple statement could sum up what the Terran Union of Free Governments became. A bloated corpse simple known as the Terran Union, then just The Union created its own downfall. The technology of T.U. rose beyond human race's wildest imaginings. Technology, past millennium would view as magic were every day matters of fact. But technological prowess will not overcome hubris, moral decline, and meanness of Man. And so the Union fell and with it the galaxy was plunged into darkness that had not been known in human history.
We extant try to rise above our own meagerness to reach for the greatness of the ancients. Will we doom ourselves to repeat their great fall as well. It is hard to think of a way to describe how far we are from where we have been. What does the ant say to the space-god arrayed in magics beyond imagining? First things first we must reach out of our own gravity well or let the once great Terran flame be extinguished.
'I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'
We have risen, we reach out for the stars again to find all those lost things. But maybe it is better they are left lost. Fore have we not also lost that evil that lead us astray in the first place? Can we be great on our own merit or will we forever live in the shadow of our downfall.
A tale in three parts, a past of great science. A present of middling barbarism and almost medieval level technology of sword and shield, of magic of techa. A future of reclaiming the high places only to see how far the ancients are beyond out own mighty understanding.
The Downfall - Super tech
The Extant - Feeble grasping at tech that seems like magic to the uninitiated
The Hereafter - if the future as bright as it could be dogging in the steps of the past