Firmament Frontline: Glamoth

Sealed inside a dimensional sphere is the transformable shell of the Iron Cavalry of the Glamoth Empire. Countless silver mechs were loaded onto warships and flew to the outer rim of the galaxy to fight the ferocious swarms of insects out of deep space.

The Glamoth Empire held a vast territory stretching tens of thousands of light years, and it was always full of ambition toward the far reaches of the galaxy. In the empire's most flourishing era, the queen of Glamoth, Titania, holding supreme power, raised a magnificent fleet and swore to carry the fruits of civilization to every wild frontier, so that they might feel the mercy of the empire and be brought under a single rule.

However, the final expedition failed disastrously before the endless, ferocious waves of insects that came from the other side of the sky. The armies of Glamoth struck back, failed, struck back again, and failed again… all the colonies were scattered, and the steadfast fleet that had once been their pride fell to one defeat after another. Surrounded by legions of monsters with compound eyes and hardened wings, the cries of the people of Glamoth sank into despair, and from then on the sky of the empire was shattered.

Until one day, knights in powerful mechs descended from the sky and swept away the vermin that blotted out the heavens. From then on the silver cavalry traveled to every planetary region of the empire, crossing all the ravaged territories to hold back the disaster that would have destroyed the star system. They were like warriors born to fight the insect swarms. No one knew their true appearance beneath those masks, but their arrival was like gods granting grace, bringing the light of dawn back to the world of humankind. Under the queen's command, the Iron Cavalry of Glamoth roamed the skies and at last held back the enemy's wave of attacks, granting the empire a few hours of rest.

But in that endless war against the insects, the empire gradually came to resemble the enemy it fought: more and more iron cavalry rose into the sky, exactly like the insects that had once suddenly swarmed in and covered the air. The way the people looked at the queen and her knights was no different from the frightened way they had looked at the alien insect swarms. Perhaps one day the empire will win the victory it longs for, but when that day comes, will Glamoth still be a paradise where people can live in joy?

On the frontier of Glamoth, where the war still goes on, the iron cavalry forms the last line of defense. Aboard the warships, the silent knights are given their mission, and carrying the hope of the whole empire, they fight to hold back the enemy's galactic wave of attack.

The flourishing “Glamoth Empire” has quietly turned to dust, and there is nothing at all that can prove its glory in the past. Only stardust, machines, ships and the corpses of insects drift in the vacuum, stretching on like a river, holding the front line in its wretched state and becoming the monument to its own collapse.

The historians of the Intelligentsia Guild hold that the Glamoth Republic was destroyed by an insect plague. Another view holds that this nation was destroyed utterly by an enemy of transcendent power.

To turn the tide against the terrible assault of the insect swarms, the ruling council made a reckless move and resolved to alter the very nature of humankind so that it might adapt to war, creating a weapon “born to fight”.

And the fruit of it was “Titania”. The queen, who held no power of her own at all, commanded through the strength of telepathic sense and bound to herself the knights who were linked to her. In the dreams woven for these warriors, the only meaning of their existence was to protect Titania and her “empire”. In their short lives they studied, fought, carried out the queen's orders, faced the enemy without fear, and then died a glorious death.

No one knows when this lie was exposed. Did it begin on the day the ancient humankind within Glamoth's territory fell below a certain proportion? Did it begin on the day the scientists discovered that the queen had risen up against her confinement? Or… did it begin on the day the insect swarms' assault had all but faded away?

All that people know is that the iron cavalry gave everything for an “empire” that did not exist. After decades of bloody fighting, machines and insect corpses turned into fragments scattered everywhere across the territory of the Glamoth star system, joined together into a “river of death”. When the remaining insect swarms could no longer pose a threat, the heads of the council struck the bell of peace and announced to thousands upon thousands of people that they had driven away the calamity that blotted out the sky, and that the republic was greeting the dawn once more… and yet what was coming was not daylight, but the beginning of another night.

After that the civilization that bore the name of Glamoth withered and vanished, and the peace that people had longed for so long came at last to a star system with no master. Stardust and insect corpses gathered into a long river, flowing quietly downstream together with the stars.