It is early in the Earth year 2268, just over six years after John Sheridan liberated the Earth, and just under a year since the Drakh used a Shadow Death-Cloud to destroy it.

With the Earth destroyed, the Earth Alliance government on Mars, together with the Interstellar Alliance, has dispatched Captain Matthew Gideon and the Excalibur to find a new homeworld for the Human race, and to find weapons to use in a hoped-for strike back against the Drakh.

The Excalibur discovers a dead world with its cities still intact, just before a Minbari Sharlin cruiser and a Centauri Primus battleship each arrive to claim the world for their own respective empires.  While Gideon and Matheson strive to keep those two interlopers at bay, Max Eilerson, in accordance with his orders from IPX and Mars, searches the planet for super-weapons to use against the Drakh.  Dureena Nafeel does some investigating of her own.

On Mars, Senator Jacob Redway declares his candidacy for the presidency of the Earth Alliance, running against President Susanna Luchenko.  Redway is visited in his quarters after his speech by a group of mysterious figures, who were apparently able to get past his elaborate security, as if they had been invisible.  They knock him out and begin some sort of medical examination of the senator...

The Centauri and Minbari landing parties that have ventured down to the deserted planet's surface descend into madness, murdering one another in a frenzy of mindless violence during the night.  Their agonized final reports prompt those two races to abandon their colonization efforts and leave.  

Galen discovers the cause of the world's catastrophe-- he finds giant underground computer system which contains the personality of a long-dead Techno-mage.  The Techno-"ghost" saturated the planet with nanotech machines that behave like a virus, coming to life when the sun's radiation is reduced at night, and causing homicidal behavior.  In his righteous fury, Galen destroys this "Genius Loci" Techno-ghost by hurling his staff into the computer system, though he loses the staff in the process, much to his consternation.  Giving up the search, Galen returns to the Excalibur.  He brings with him a hooded figure he rescued from the planet's surface.

The Excalibur's resident thief, Dureena Nafeel, is the last crewmember to re-board the ship.  She approaches Galen on the bridge-- she is covered in mud, but has found his staff and presents it to him.  He is enormously grateful.  She also reveals that she found a sword of some kind in the wreckage of Genius Loci's cave.  Examining the sword, Galen seems very unhappy about her having it.  Gideon wants to know why Galen should care if Dureena keeps the sword, since she found it fair and square.  Galen reluctantly agrees that she can keep it... for now.

With the crew of the Excalibur all back safely, the ship moves on.  Galen brings the person he rescued to the bridge and introduces him as the legitimate "Ranger One."  To everyone's surprise, the figure reveals his face-- it is Neroon, who served briefly as Ranger One after Delenn's disappearance in 2261, but vanished when the Religious Caste won the Minbari Civil War later that year.  He is a fugitive, wanted by the Rangers and the Minbari Government, but Galen announces that he has extended to Neroon his protection and that of the Mages.

"And so," Galen whispers, "it begins..."

Gideon returns to his quarters, where he scolds the Apocalypse Box for telling him he would find something of great value on that planet.  The Box replies that he did...

Annotations for "The Memory of War."

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DarkCrusade is the Crusade Alternate Universe story--
the complete, five-year Crusade saga, following one slight change in 2261, "the year everything changed."
Story, design, and layout by Van Allen Plexico. Send correspondence and comments to vplexico@bellsouth.net
Babylon 5 and Crusade created by J. Michael Straczynski and property of Warner Communications.