The Myriad defied description. They were immense. They were divine. Everyone that saw them in person died. Almost no footage survived. What remains is best not viewed. Lumbering forms the size of a city and things in orbit shadowing the horizon, strands of cables hundreds of meters thick crashing into the earth. Swarms of biomechanical monsters stripping all life from a region and dragging it to processing centers to make more of their kind. Moons outlined in nuclear flame.

What is guessed is that the anarchy of the Transitional Era and its reckless experimentation, coupled with the rapid expansion of the Megastructures, created a unique point of flux. A brief period of high energy, high potential, and a great deal of people and infrastructure to exploit. If one tried to Transcend, and disregarded the consequences to everyone but themselves, this could allow even a mere baseline to reach unfathomable heights.

They then set about killing each other, almost instantly. No one knew why, and all attempts at communication failed. Every terror visited on pan-humanity was an afterthought to the titanomachy that was waged among their own kind. And those terrors still bore themselves so deep into the psyche of humankind that their scars still linger.

The grand nations of the Transitional Era, their proud and powerful armies, and the mightiest of their posthuman slave-warriors were simply swept aside. Tales yet remain of valiant heroism, of humanity in the face of doom, of sacrifice to save even a scant few. That humanity still exists is proof that at least some of these acts were not in vain, even if the details have long been forgotten.

It can truthfully be said that even now, they are the most feared things in all of history. It is for this reason that to this day there is stigma against deviating too far from the human mind and body. The idea of another Myriad-like being appearing today, no matter how impossible it may seem, is enough to make even bitter enemies pause their feud, if only for a moment.