Echoes of the First World

Previously

…The megastructure around them pulsed with an unimaginable power, and the Odyssey, caught in its gravitational and temporal wake, began to drift. The crew watched, mesmerized, as the chamber around them dissolved into a kaleidoscope of light and energy. They were no longer observers. They were participants. The echoes of the First World were no longer just a message; they were a tide, and it was pulling them in. The signal had been activated, and with it, something far greater, and far more terrifying, had begun.