In the Forty Fifth Cycle of Galactic Time, the two great civilizations, the Malconians and the Ruaaiiya, destroyed each other with weapons terrible beyond imagination. Their passing from galactic history was not fast, nor easy, and was not lonely. Virtually every civilization that existed at the time, space-going and not, was pressed into the conflict, on one side or the other. All were lost. Now, in the Seventy Fifth Cycle, or approximately two hundred fifty million years later, life began to spread its wings throughout the galaxy once again, pressing the frontiers of science onward and colonization outward. It would not be long before the first of the abandoned war machinery of an age long gone from history would be discovered orbitting this planet or that, or perhaps hidden under the surface of some airless moon. And then, only then, could the cycle of birth, death and eventual rebirth start again. For such is the nature of this Universe, that those that live must die and return to start anew, over and over and over again, throughout time until the end of all things.