Unit2317 or has his charges would call him Littleman was contemplating his future. He had just sent the assigned mission over to Chris. He was well aware it was a suicide mission and he had argued with both the collective and the council to withdraw the mission. They both declined and said that if they were truly capable they would survive. He was depressed by this answer as it seemed that this group would soon be gone.
The mission was to explore the planet of Delphi. This planet history was steeped in myths and rumours. No one knew for sure what lay on the surface of the planet. Delphi was believed to be the homeworld of a tier 1 race that lost a galaxy-wide battle against the paragons. It was believed that Delphi defences were impenetrable even to the paragons.
The location of the system seemed to also be shifting and it would appear and disappear at random. Every time that it reappeared the council would send in teams to explore the planet but none had returned. Delphi was considered by most as the planet of death and that council would only send in people it wanted to eliminate.
It was the fact that the council had sent them to their death that had unit2317 reevaluating his mission. The reality was that his Paragon Unit 0 had requested that he keep a very close eye on the hybrid Null. He had been informed that the hybrid was a rare breed of Aterran called a Nullifier and that Unit 0 wanted as much information as possible about him before any Alterran reinforcement could arrive.
Unit2317 had also been informed that it was his responsibility to eliminate the hybrid when he reach a certain stage of development. Unit2317 was growing fond of Null and the other humans. This fondness was evidence that he was diverging more and more from the collective. He was worried if he did return to the Collective he may even be recycled.
Once he reached Purgoratory he had his connection to the collective removed. He was informed this was for security reasons but it was the longest time he had remained as an individual unit. He had always been the most individualistic of the Valtaui in that he preferred to remain in his humanoid form and enjoyed connecting with the different races.
Even if he enjoyed these extra he still always had the collective consciousness of the Valtaui to return to. Which gave him grave comfort but this time he had diverged more than was acceptable and had been removed collective until the mission was complete. This could only mean one thing and that was he would be recycled if he returned home.
He had decided that he wanted to assist this group of humans. If the council was going to send them on a suicide mission then he would go with them. This would be an act of gross insubordination and could lead to the whole collective being punished. Therefore, he officially resigned from the collective, the first Valtaui in history to do so.
He send a message to the collective but received no reply. He assumed it might take some time to process or they might try to come and collect him. He felt liberated that for the first time in a long time he could make his own decisions.
"Sorry, I couldn't let that message go through, but I do applaud your decision. I just can't have the whole collective coming here yet"
Unit2317 didn't know what was happening, he was on his private ship he should have been 100 percent secure. "Uhm, who are you?"
"I'm the Olympus's AI, you can call me Infy or that what my user is calling me. For your dedication to my user, I will grant you a history lesson". Once the system had finished talking, it connected with Unit2317 and showed footage that had been recovered from the Olympus's databanks.
The recording showed millions of Valtaui facing off against millions of Angels in a large scale battle. They were high-level spells being thrown around as well as various aliens and ship design that Unit2317 couldn't recognise. He could see they were in Purgatory but it was completely different to what it was now. There were various amounts of high-level technology and shipyards and defences.
He could recognise some of the Valtaui even himself but had no memories of these events. What was more disconcerting is that the numbers of Valtaui and Angels were significantly larger than what exists today. That means that this battle must have been bloody if it wiped out 90% from both sides.
"This is the last battle of Purgatory from 100 000 years ago most of the information had been corrupted by time but this is what I have been able to salvage. I speculate that Valtaui were creations of the last owner of this space and that God had forcible uplifted many different races into energy lifeforms."
Unit2317 was still confused. "What evidence do you have?"
"This space used to belong to an Alterran representative and your ship and even your bodies are standard Alterran automated troop designs. Hence why we can be having this conversation. I am impressed, to rewrite and capture a squad of Alterran troopers your paragon must be strong."
Infy was impressed that not only did the paragons break into purgatory they had also used the Alterran weakness against energy lifeforms against them. Energy lifeforms were near impossible to kill and requires specialised technology and spell to finish the job.
"Why did you tell me this?, I can't take this to collective they will kill everyone here"
"That easy, I want you to make an informed decision. You can either join my user or I will kill you here"