8) Ithax and the Bargain [contextual concept piece #5]

As they're out foraging in a forest, a group of Cimmerians encounters a strange visitor: red Ouranian Ithax. Envious of his partner, blue Calypso, for earning a deathless name through her discoveries (including the Herculean System in which Cimmeria exists), Ithax hatches an outrageous plan. He offers the astonished Cimmerians a bargain: In exchange for allowing him to take steps to adjust their planet’s elliptical orbit into one that is once again circular and lies within Hercules's habitable zone, he will civilize the Cimmerians and lavish upon them advanced technologies they could never hope to attain otherwise. A deal is struck on the spot. Yet what seems too good to be true will prove instead to be a horrific nightmare, as Ithax's efforts set in motion a sequence of events that will immerse the Ouranians in a brutal civil war, destroy nearly all the planets in the Herculean system, and may jeopardize the spread and future existence of intelligent life throughout the universe.