The Kronn ruled the galaxy for untold eons, using a complex but functional bureaucracy. They, along with the industrial, aggressive Tastur; the psionic, warrior, and robotics-loving Prothen; and the artistic, epicurean, Vor ruled the galaxy in the Galactic Tetrarchy comprised of the Kronn Bureaucratic Empire, Tastur Xaraulate, Prothen Empire, and Vorian Republic. Each spawned and guarded over various descendent species, the Kronn being the most expert and prolific at this. Thus the galaxy was filled with numerous species, each able to trace its lineage back to one of the Progenitors, as the tetrarchy was called. Then, to the wonder of all, the Kronn created life; not merely improving on native species or creating subspecies as they and the other Progenitors had done, but real, unique, organic life. It was a highly adaptive, tenacious microorganism that attached to large creatures' spinal columns and lived in a mutual relationship with the host. The Kronn, many of the Tastur, some of the Prothen, and billions of the children species began to allow colonies of these microorganisms to attach to themselves, with many beneficial affects caused by them. The entire galaxy celebrated the Kronns' achievement and the Kronn cemented their supremacy while the galaxy sat on the threshold of a new era unlike none ever seen before. Then the organisms, being ruled by a hive mind, began to infect all those that carried them. First the corners of the galaxy gave way to the infection, with those with weaker systems dying and then reanimating and infecting those uninfected. Entire species were wiped out and a galactic-wide panic ensued; the Tastur, their children species either wiped out, infected, or lost, closed all contact with the Kronn and closed off their borders. They then began attacking the disintegrating borders of the Kronn Bureaucracy, causing heavy casualties. The Kronn devised a desperate plan to stop both the infection and the Tastur: they created life again. This time it was artificial intelligence; a race of robots called the Cyth bent on eradicating the infection and Tastur. The Tastur collapsed under the systematic, relentless robotic assault; they had their gruesome last stand at their home world of Tas'Aga I where the Tastur defenders were attacked by a Cyth invasion from space and infected Tastur from behind. But then the Cyth did something unexpected; they began a systematic invasion of both the Prothen and Vor, causing thousands of deaths and weakening Prothen defenses. To this point the Prothen Empire and, to a lesser extent, the Republic had been fighting valiantly against the infection, even taking back some lost worlds but with the coming of the Cyth their defenses broke and the two Kronn creations poured into the Prothen Empire. The Vor were overwhelmed and whatever of their race remained fled to a far corner of the galaxy, abandoning the Prothen to their own fate. Just as it seemed like the Prothen were to be the next Telophs, the Kronn, in their ever more desperate attempts to stop the infection, preformed a technological and psionic miracle on the next generation of Prothen younglings. They made them cyborgs; part organic, part machines. The rest of the pure organic Prothen died off fighting the Cyth and the infection, then the cyborg Prothen generation, impervious to the infection, and their offspring came to power in the shrunken Empire. Their new augments gave the Prothen more strength and power in battle, enabling them to fight both the infected and the Cyth more effectivly, but still the Cyth pushed toward Arung Uni. At the same time an infected swarm of untold numbers was getting ever closer to Krodia, homeworld of the Kronn and heart of the galaxy, the Kronn defenses kept failing and trillions of Kronn were dead or infected and most of their children species were the same. As their last act, as the infected monstrosities filled the skies of Krodia, Kronn scientists discovered a frequency that could affect the hive mind, and thus the entire infection. Scouts in the fastest ships and Kronn behind the infected swarm were given the instructions build monoliths on all worlds within several thousand lightyears of Krodia that were heavily infected, these monoliths were then tuned to the frequency to call and pacify all infected within several lightyears of the monoliths. The Kronn who built these monoliths then watched as Krodia fell to the infection. The galaxy was now shrouded in a great darkness. The few remaining Kronn disappeared from history, and only four of the original thousands of children species survived. The Prothen, left alone as the masters of the galaxy, continued to fight the Cyth with the infection gone, but Prothen casualties continued to rise and the war dragged on. The Cyth are arguably the most powerful species and force in the galaxy, even more powerful than their Kronn creators, designed specifically by the Kronn for genocide of an already genocidal species, thus not even the Prothen, a warrior race, could hold them back. A Prothen executor, Arykhas, devised a way to hopefully stop the Cyth onslaught. He boarded the fastest ship and flew past the Cyth front, to where the Cyth overmind resided on a lost Kronn world. According to legend the overmind made a connection with the executor and they negotiated with each other. Arykhas eventually agreed to sacrifice himself to end the Cyth assault. The Cyth withdrew to deep space and wait in case the infection was ever unleashed again. The Prothen, suffering the loss of several generations, around 200 quadrillion, reformed their society into a strict caste-system, dissolved the heirless empire and made a council of caste archons led by a matriarch. The new Protectorates slowly rebuilt their race, constantly vigilant for the return of the the infection or the Cyth, and also guarding over the four remaining children species; the Rranthi, Vorra, Zaddad, and Hrullgi, all children of the Kronn, except Hrullgi. The Hrullgi, forming a trade empire like their parent species the Tastur, rebelled against the guardianship of the Prothen, resulting in the Hrullgis' eventual extinction. These eons after the end of the Dark Epoch and before the modern era is called the Millennia Year Stillness due to the almost calm that settled over the galaxy. The Prothen scoured the galaxy looking for surviving or unknown species, desperate to find more survivors from the Dark Epoch. They were successful; for they almost immediately found an alien race unknown to the Kronnian races, a little species just then achieving space-flight. The Prothen watched as the race spread at a surprising rate, colonizing and populating entire star systems like Prothen never could. The High Council decreed that the Prothen could not interfere, but they were more and more worried that this new race would unbalance the order that had pervaded over the galaxy for thousands of years.
