TUESDAY, AUGUST 7TH - 312TH YEAR OF THE 7TH ERA Light spilled through the window from a dying sun and danced across the console’s display, tossing a spectrum of colours across the vaulted echelons of the outpost; this solitary locale resides atop the world’s highest mountain peak, as close to the stars as one could get without boarding a vessel. In front of the console was the machine, which was humming peacefully as it has done for millennia. Veins of light were interspersed throughout its construction, occasionally pulsating as it performed its duty: preventing the sun’s fatal radiation from eradicating all sentient life below by way of maintaining a barrier around the planet. The veins were of all different lengths and widths, yet all coursed their way to a central point atop the outpost where a pylon resided, firing off bursts of pure light into the sky never to be seen again. No living soul has stepped foot in an outpost for countless generations. They were constructed by the