It had been eons since the Coalescence had first directed certain of its Watchers to turn their attention to the odd intelligence developing on a small world at the edge of the galaxy. The species' gradual spread through its own solar system had been observed with mounting concern and now, as humanity made its first tentative movements beyond the confines of that system, the Coalescence was forced to make a decision. After a brief concourse it was determined that the Adversary would be sent to disrupt further progress.
The strategy employed by the Adversary was a simple one, one which had proven effective many times before in restraining species deemed unsuitable for Elevation. They would infiltrate the world, locate inherent weaknesses and internal tensions and then exploit these in a way that would cripple any but the most halfhearted attempts at moving out into the galaxy. In this case the task promised to be quite simple as humanity was riddled with social and cultural fault lines that, when properly manipulated, collapsed violently, leading to the dissolution of any organized excursions beyond the established planetary colonies.
Unexpectedly, however, complications arose which had never before been encountered. The first of these was that many of the Adversary began to develop an affinity for the species whose ambitions they had been sent to thwart. These sensed that some quality in humanity had been overlooked, perhaps unrecognizable at first for its uniqueness. They began to believe that humanity, if properly guided, might hold great promise. This was made known to the Coalescence.
A second and far more serious problem originated not among the Adversary, but among humanity itself. Unbelievably (certainly, nothing of the sort had ever happened before), certain men and women first guessed, and then became convinced of the presence of the Adversary among themselves. How this happened was never clear, but the crisis came to an unthinkable apex when in the course of a single day fourteen of the Adversary were isolated and revealed. In the panic which ensued, tens of thousands died in tragically misguided witch-hunts and the resultant mass executions. The Adversary withdrew, shaken.
Now humanity knew with absolute certainty that it was not alone, and the push into space which had been brought to a halt by the machinations of the Coalescence resumed with a fevered intensity. Again, the Watchers turned their patient gaze to the galaxy's edge. The Coalescence's strategy shifted from interference to concealment, and its thousands of worlds were made imperceptible to the advancing wave.
Over centuries, humanity moved deeply into the galaxy. Conflicts flared between rival outposts and, in the early days, more than one developing sentient race found its premature doom in the arrival of vast colony ships. Oddly, no equals were ever encountered.
Humanity had not forgotten its experience with what came to be called the Others. In time, however, the monstrous aspect of this memory faded and a terrible longing took its place. The desire for contact grew to the stature of a racial obsession, yet the Others were nowhere to be found. In their absence, their silence, humanity began to consider its own path. New generations came to regard the brutal vagaries of their history with increasing horror and sadness. A strong conviction swept among the daughters and sons of Earth that they had been justly abandoned, that the Others had removed themselves forever from the galaxy and that humanity had earned its solitude.
The Watchers observed with interest.
Now a strange thing appeared among humanity. It was the children who first found that they were able to link themselves together and raise the Voice. Their joy in this discovery flooded the spaces between the stars, a soundless shout of delighted communion. The adults listened, amazed, and slowly began to add their own contribution.
At first faltering, a distinct harmonic arose from the interplay between the unelaborated pleasure of the young and the weary loneliness of their elders. It deepened rapidly, and within days a thousand human worlds were knit together in the rich consonance of the Voice. It sang remorse, and long pain. It sang of ruptures forever closed, and belonging. As it reached its crescendo, a new, final note insinuated itself, the chord was completed, and the skies were filled with lights.