TheWRITEaddiction.com

Narrated by Vedek Lira

Time is. Time was. Time will be.

Before warp flight, before the Federation, before Earth dared to lift its eyes to the stars, there was a reckoning. The Eugenics Wars had left the planet hollowed and haunted — its soil scorched, its cities broken, its people scattered. Yet from the ashes came a fragile, stubborn thing: hope.

And hope, like light, draws watchers.

Across the galaxies, beings older than suns and wiser than civilizations turned their gaze toward this wounded blue world. They had seen empires rise and fall, species transcend and perish — yet something about humanity refused to die. Something defiant, beautiful, and foolish.

So they gathered — the omnipotent, the timeless, the weary — in a place beyond all dimensions. A saloon of starlight and memory. Its door swung between realities, its sign glowing softly in the void:

THE LAST ROUNDUP.

Eight beings took their seats at the table, each wearing a form drawn from humanity’s own face — for to judge mortals fairly, they would first need to look like them.

The Great Question

Why should humanity rise again?

They had seen it destroy itself before — through pride, fear, and invention untempered by grace. But now they saw its survivors rebuilding gardens in the ruins.

So the omnipotent made a wager. Each would walk among humankind — guiding, testing, learning. Through gamblers and prophets, orphans and widows, sheriffs and dreamers, they would see whether mercy could be reborn.

And when The Phoenix rose from Montana’s soil and touched warp speed, the Council understood: humanity was not an error to correct, but a story to continue.

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The Legacy of the Roundup

The lessons learned at the Roundup would echo across centuries.

In time, Jean-Luc Picard would meet the Continuum and teach Qylarin’s kin that even gods require ethics.
Benjamin Sisko, half Prophet and wholly human, would carry Lira’s voice into war and peace alike.

The seeds sown here — in the quiet dawn after humanity’s fall — would grow into the Federation itself.

The cards are on the table.
The lanterns are lit.
And the story of who we are — and who we might become — begins here.