The Terran Empire and the Nihil

Year 3000 and on. The Terran Empire is humanity's one state: Terra, the Moon, Mars and the ice moons. It wins by specification, not by numbers. Every ship has a part number, every soldier a gene-line, every failure a revision. Its look is clean: white and dark gray composite, cyan light, brushed gold.

The Nihil Hive-Mind is not an army. It is one organism with many bodies. Nihil is Latin for "nothing", which is what the Empire expects to be left with. The Nihil wants everything to become more of itself, matter first, then minds, each one added to the chorus. It does not hate and it does not negotiate. It never builds, it grows. Its ships are wombs, its weapons are organs, its doors are valves. Where it touches Terran machinery the metal veins over, the glass clouds and the machine turns. Terran light is cold and exact. The Nihil is warm, wet and rhythmic.

Timeline. In 2987 a signal arrives from beyond the outer moons and is logged as noise. In 2996 the outer colonies go quiet one by one, and the Cradle foundries open. In 3004 a seed-ship slips the picket line and lands at Outpost Selene. Eleven days later the Sentinels deploy. The campaign is the counter-offensive, nearest breach first and then outward: the Moon, Mars, Europa, Saturn's moon Ligeia, and the Cradle itself.