From Deep Time

The worlds described within this volume are ancient beyond ordinary reckoning. Their ecosystems are not merely the product of recent evolution, but of processes unfolding across spans of time measured in hundreds of millions of years. Entire mountain ranges have risen and vanished. Oceans have formed and disappeared. Species have emerged, flourished, and vanished long before the appearance of their modern descendants. Complicating matters further is the simple reality that civilization itself has existed throughout much of this history.

The contemporary Ran Civilization represents only the latest expression of a far older continuity. Before it stood the Elder Empire, whose influence remains visible across numerous worlds. Before that existed civilizations of even greater antiquity, among them the mysterious Primal Empire, whose origins, achievements, and ultimate fate remain only partially understood despite centuries of investigation. Life did not evolve in isolation from these societies. It evolved alongside them.

Throughout the fossil record one encounters evidence of habitation, cultivation, domestication, transportation, ecological engineering, extinction events, restoration efforts, and migrations influenced by intelligent life. Entire evolutionary lineages have emerged beneath the shadow of civilizations already ancient when the earliest surviving historical records were first compiled. As a consequence, the distinction between natural history and civilizational history becomes increasingly difficult to maintain when examining the deeper layers of time. The two are frequently intertwined.

Many organisms discussed within this guide possess ancestral histories extending far beyond the contemporary age. Some may predate the Elder Empire itself. Others appear only after periods of extensive environmental modification or interstellar expansion. A small number seem to emerge abruptly within the record, their earlier origins obscured by the immense distances of time.

The reader should therefore approach all questions of origin with appropriate caution. In a system as old as Ran, absence of evidence is rarely evidence of absence. The deeper one ventures into the past, the less certain the boundary becomes between evolutionary history, lost history, and forgotten prehistory.