Preface to Part 2

Yesterday, I explained the circumstances leading up to the creation of VIRUS 5: Tau Ceti which eventually became Part 2 of Rome's Revolution. Today I am giving you the first half of the preface to what was supposed to be the second book in the series.

What Has Gone Before

     Part 1: In the year 2067, a starship called the Ark II is launched into space with 543 people on board. These people are in a state of cryo-hibernation, a kind of freeze-drying, which was the only way deemed possible to survive the long journey to the stars. Their mission was to locate a habitable world in the Tau Ceti system and set up a colony there. The trip was supposed to take 120 years. Unfortunately, an unknown accident causes the Ark II to miss its mark and the ship ends up in the Tabit system, more that 26 light years from Earth.
     In the year 3455, the Ark II is discovered by the Vuduri, the people of the future, who are operating a stellar cartography base on a moon called Dara in the Tabit system to study why certain stars are disappearing. The Vuduri have an additional chromosome, a 24th chromosome, which imbues them with some unusual abilities including the ability to link minds. Their collective consciousness, called the Overmind, runs the base and, in fact, runs the lives of all the Vuduri. The Vuduri have mastered the art of gravitic engineering, transmutation and other arcane sciences. The Vuduri have also conquered faster-than-light travel.
     One of the colonists, named Rei Bierak, is awakened after having been asleep for 1388 years. Once Rei is awakened, he meets and falls in love with a Vuduri woman named Rome who is eventually cast out of the Overmind for having consorted with Rei. The Vuduri have their own language and call Rei’s generation the Garecei Ti Essessoni. This phrase means the “Killer Generation” because right after Rei’s Ark left Earth, an artificial virus was released which wiped out over nine billion people, leaving the planet in a shambles. This massive loss of life was called the Great Dying.
     Rei also meets a somewhat amoral super-computer, called OMCOM, who takes a liking to Rei because he has a personality, which is one trait the Vuduri seem to have lost. OMCOM is actively engaged in researching the underlying cause of the stars disappearing. With Rei’s help, OMCOM and the others deduce that the stars are being consumed by a gigantic creature called Asdrale Cimatir or Stareater. Even worse, they extrapolate this threat to all of life is headed for Earth.
     Eventually, they determine the only way to stop this menace is to “infect” it with self-replicating nanites, called VIRUS units. The plan is to take this solution to Earth and let the scientists there figure out a way to deploy this novel weapon.

Tomorrow, the second half.