Forerunners (The History of the Galaxy)

Forerunners is a name given by human scientists to an ancient semi-intelligent race of space-born creatures in "The History of the Galaxy" series of novels by Russian science fiction writer Andrey Livadny.

Little is known about these strange beings, except that they were, most likely, the first lifeforms to exist in the universe after the Big Bang. As such, they were composed of proto-matter. They only possessed a low-level intelligence level, enough for them to seek out food and consume it. Their food was any form of matter in the universe, although they were unable to consume stars. However, they used starlight to guide them and flew to the stars like moths to a flame.

Known Facts

Nearly 3 million years ago, a large swarm of Forerunners was detected approaching an inhabited region of space in our galaxy. The swarm consumed all planets, asteroids, and even space dust in their path. This region of space, latter named by humans the Sleeve of Emptiness, lay directly in the path of the Forerunners. Realizing that the swarm would destroy their races, the inhabitants of the region began to prepare for it. The two-headed Logrians chose to take their massive space habitats and attempt to outrun the Forerunners, fleeing from them. The Insects decided to hide themselves and wait out the "storm" by building a massive Dyson Sphere around their home star - thus making their star invisible to the swarm. Unfortunately, the sphere was not yet completed, when the Forerunners attacked and nearly destroyed it. Desperate, the Insects abandoned their worlds and left after the Logrians. Only the Delphons, who by that time visited many worlds in the galaxy, including Earth, decided to stay and fight, if not for their own survival, then for the survival of the races to come. After years of trying and failing to halt the swarm's advance, the Delphons came up with a suicidal plan to stop the Forerunners once and for all: whenever the swarm would approach one of their systems, they would detonate the systems star, destroying at least a part of the swarm. In the end, the Delphon civilization completely annihilated itself; however, their sacrifice was not in vain - the Forerunners were destroyed as well.

Millions of years later, an archaeological expedition by the Confederacy of Suns to one of these annihilated systems discovered several Forerunners in an inert state. By feeding them matter, the humans managed to reawaken the ancient creatures, not knowing the danger they represent. The Forerunners managed to break containment and attacked and nearly destroyed a Confederate fleet in the system, constantly multiplying. Only a counterattack by their natural enemies, the entriphages, allowed the humans to stop another catastrophe.

While it is possible that other Forerunners exist elsewhere in the universe, no more of them have been detected in the Milky Way galaxy.