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  In the academic world, there is still no consensus on one pressing question: where did it all begin? What event served as the trigger, the catalyst that unleashed the avalanche? There are dozens, if not hundreds, of theories, each attempting to pinpoint a single starting point.

  Personally, I believe that such a narrow approach is too limiting. This question needs to be considered more comprehensively, not by isolating one event, but by looking at the broader picture. With this perspective, the beginning of this story can be traced to a series of strange and inexplicable anomalies—events that, at the time, were largely dismissed by the galaxy at large.

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  Even the witnesses to these anomalies often considered what they saw to be nothing more than tricks of their own minds, rather than local disruptions of the fundamental laws of physics. It seemed too unbelievable. That was a mistake.

  Our institute has documented far fewer accounts of these anomalies than we would have liked. Many galactic sites that were affected remain inaccessible to this day. There is no communication, no data—from automated probes, nor from surviving eyewitnesses, if any exist at all.

  And, to be honest... we still don’t know what to do about it.