Pre-Cosmos

"Those plant beings who populated the extinct Pre-Universe had anchored in the particles of matter itself a genetic programming for a prospective new cosmos, which included preventive and defensive measures against all pro-entropic tendencies."
-- The Pre-Universe of the Ancients (Booklet 094)

"In the eyes of the Director shimmered the First World, the cosmos of the Ancient Ones."
-- Glossary description of the Erste Welt

"A previous universe that existed before ours, destroyed by an equivalent of Kaiserkraft."
-- Glossary entry for Pre-Cosmos

The Pre-Cosmos (German: Pra-Kosmos, also called the Pre-Universe / Pra-Universum / Prauniversum, the First World / Erste Welt, or the Cosmos of the Ancient Ones / Kosmos der Uralten) is the universe that existed before the Big Bang -- the cosmos that preceded the current one in which Die Terranauten takes place. It is the foundational cosmological concept of the saga, the invisible bedrock upon which every cosmic structure, every anti-entropy mechanism, every living artifact, and every prophesied destiny ultimately rests. The Pre-Cosmos was the home of the Ancients (German: Die Uralten), an intelligent plant civilization of supreme power and wisdom, whose universe was destroyed by an entropy catastrophe equivalent to the Kaiser Force devastation now threatening the current cosmos.

The Pre-Cosmos is never visited, never depicted directly, and never experienced by any living character in the saga. It is known only through its remnants -- the World Trees, the Steerers, the Old Forest, the Connex Crystal, the Reality Switch, the Space Roads, the Buds of the Tree, the Cosmic Spores, and the galaxy-spanning Intercosmic Anti-Entropy System known as the Long Row. These remnants are not dead relics. They are living systems, engineered by the Ancients to survive the death of one universe and sustain the next. The Pre-Cosmos is therefore simultaneously the saga's most remote concept and its most present reality: everything the characters encounter, fight over, and sacrifice for is a consequence of what the Ancients built before the Big Bang.

Description

The Pre-Cosmos was a complete, self-contained universe -- not merely a proto-state or a dimensional fragment, but a full reality that preceded the current cosmos in the cycle of universal existence. It is described in terms that emphasize its radical otherness from the present universe: the Pre-Cosmos was a cosmos of harmony and unity (the Erste Welt, the "First World"), dominated not by animal or carnivorous life but by a civilization of intelligent plants. The Ancients populated this universe for billions of years, existing in ecological and spiritual perfection -- a state described as the "world of harmony and unity, of the Uralten."

The Pre-Cosmos did not merely precede the current universe in time. It preceded it in kind. The current cosmos is characterized by a fundamental division between plant and carnivorous life -- a division that the glossary describes as "the barrier that has separated plant and carnivorous life since the fall of the Pre-Universe." This barrier did not exist in the Pre-Cosmos. The First World knew no predation, no carnivorous competition, no species consuming other species for survival. The emergence of carnivorous life in the current cosmos represents a cosmic schism, a loss of the original harmony that the Ancients' infrastructure is designed to eventually restore.

Nature of the Pre-Cosmos

A Universe of Plant Intelligence

The Pre-Cosmos was governed by a single, unified form of consciousness: the Ancients, intelligent plant beings whose biological nature defined every aspect of their civilization and, through their legacy, every deep structure of the current universe. The Ancients were not one species among many. They were the dominant -- and apparently the only significant -- form of intelligent life in their cosmos, existing in a state of symbiotic unity with their universe rather than in competition with rival forms of life.

This plant-based nature is not incidental. It is the reason that every system the Ancients created is organic rather than mechanical:

• The World Trees are sentient cosmic plants, not machines
• The Steerers are plant-beings, not engineers
• The Space Roads are living corridors through Space II, not technological tunnels
• The Cosmic Spores are biological organisms, not nanobots
• The Long Row operates through PSI symbiosis, not energy extraction
• The Connex Crystal is crystallized organic memory, not a data drive

The Pre-Cosmos produced a civilization that understood the universe as a living system to be tended, not a resource to be exploited. This understanding -- encoded in every artifact the Ancients left behind -- provides the deepest moral framework of Die Terranauten: the conviction that organic, cooperative systems are the only sustainable foundation for cosmic order.

The Erste Welt -- The First World

The glossary and narrative sources refer to the Pre-Cosmos by several evocative names. The term Erste Welt ("First World") designates it as the original state of existence -- the reality that came before all others, the template against which the current cosmos is measured. The description "the world of harmony and unity, of the Uralten" establishes that the Pre-Cosmos was not merely a predecessor but an ideal: a cosmos in which life existed in harmony with itself and with the structures that sustained it.

The concept of the True Heritage of the Ancients (German: Wahre Erbe der Uralten) -- described as "the Green Phoenix's goal to eliminate carnivores and create harmony" -- suggests that certain factions in the current cosmos actively seek to restore the Pre-Cosmos's original condition. The Pre-Cosmos is not merely a historical fact but a living aspiration: the memory of a better universe that some beings work to recreate.

The Ancients: Inhabitants of the Pre-Cosmos

The Ancients (German: Die Uralten, also Vorzeitliche, Ancient Ones, Ancients of the Pre-Universe) are the supreme primordial intelligence of the Die Terranauten universe -- the inhabitants of the Pre-Cosmos whose civilization predates all current life by an entire universal cycle. They are described as "a civilization more powerful than the enigmatic Entities" (Booklet 053), placing them at the absolute apex of the cosmic hierarchy. The Ancients are further identified as "the ancestors of all people in the universe, from a cosmos that broke apart in an entropy catastrophe."

The Ancients were intelligent plant beings whose biological nature shaped everything they built. Their civilization existed for billions of years within the Pre-Cosmos, developing an understanding of cosmic mechanics -- entropy, dimensionality, psionic energy, the fabric of reality itself -- that far exceeded anything achievable by current civilizations. They engineered at the subatomic level, "anchoring in the particles of matter itself a genetic programming" that would survive the death of their universe and seed the next one with defensive infrastructure.

The Ancients' relationship to the Pre-Cosmos was one of complete symbiosis. They did not merely inhabit their universe; they were continuous with it. When the Pre-Cosmos was destroyed, the Ancients did not simply die. They transformed their knowledge, their technology, and their genetic legacy into structures capable of surviving the transition between cosmoses -- ensuring that what they had learned would not be lost.

For a comprehensive treatment of the Ancients themselves, see: Ancients

How the Pre-Cosmos Was Destroyed

The Pre-Cosmos was annihilated by an entropy catastrophe -- a cosmological collapse in which entropy overwhelmed the universe's capacity for self-maintenance, consuming all ordered structures and reducing the cosmos to a state of undifferentiated energy. The glossary describes the Ancients as coming "from a cosmos that broke apart in an entropy catastrophe," and the Pre-Cosmos itself is described as having been "destroyed by an equivalent of Kaiserkraft" (Kaiser Force).

This parallel between the Pre-Cosmos's destruction and the current cosmos's threat is the saga's most critical structural insight. The entropy catastrophe that killed the Ancients' universe is not a unique historical event but a recurring cosmic pattern:

The destruction of the Pre-Cosmos is the defining trauma of cosmic history. It is the reason the Ancients built the Intercosmic Anti-Entropy System. It is the reason the Entities threaten humanity with the Final Strike. It is the reason David terGorden must find the nine Spectra and reactivate the Long Row. Every conflict in the saga, from corporate warfare over Mistletoe Blossoms to the metaphysical Duel of Dreams, is ultimately about whether the current cosmos will share the fate of the Pre-Cosmos.

The precise mechanism of the Pre-Cosmos's destruction is never detailed beyond the term "entropy catastrophe." Whether a technology equivalent to Kaiser Force caused the collapse, whether a being equivalent to Ratatosk fed upon and accelerated the decay, or whether entropy simply reached a natural tipping point is not stated. What is stated -- and what matters -- is that the Ancients learned from the catastrophe. They did not prevent it. But they ensured that the next universe would be born with defenses already in place.

Remnants in the Current Cosmos

The Pre-Cosmos was destroyed, but it was not erased. The Ancients engineered a comprehensive set of countermeasures designed to survive the transition between universes and seed the new cosmos with the infrastructure necessary to prevent a second entropy catastrophe. These remnants constitute the deepest structural layer of reality in Die Terranauten -- the hidden architecture beneath the surface of the current universe.

The Slag of the Pre-Universe

The transition from the Pre-Cosmos to the current universe was not a clean break. Residual matter, encoded memories, and fossilized artifacts survived the passage in altered form, collectively referred to as the Slag of the Pre-Universe of the Ancients (German: Schlacke des Prauniversums der Uralten) or Memory Slag from the Pre-Universe (German: Erinnerungsschlacke aus dem Pra-Universum). The term "slag" -- the byproduct of a smelting process -- is precise: just as slag is what remains after ore is consumed in a furnace, the Pre-Universe's slag is what survived when the Pre-Cosmos was consumed and reforged into the current universe.

This slag is described as "concentrated memories of a plant civilization that lived in harmony for billions of years." It is not inert matter. It carries encoded information from the Pre-Cosmos -- the accumulated knowledge, the operational principles, the genetic programming of the Ancients. The most significant forms of Pre-Cosmic slag include:

The Connex Crystal is the single most important precosmic artifact in the saga. Described as "a legendary crystal said to be a link between the Pre-Universe and the existing universe" (Booklet 093) and as "a precosmic artifact containing the Old Knowledge of a previous universe" (Booklet 096), it preserves the complete knowledge base of the Ancients -- including the operational principles of the Long Row, the nature of the Spectra, and the history of the Pre-Cosmos itself. David terGorden's absorption of the Connex Crystal on the Central World of the Entities is the moment when the Pre-Cosmos's knowledge re-enters active use in the current universe.

The World Trees

The World Trees (German: Weltenbaume) are the primary surviving nodes of the Pre-Cosmos's infrastructure. These sentient cosmic plants are descendants of the Ancients -- or, more precisely, they "grew from the spores of the Ancients in the new universe." Each World Tree serves as a stabilizing anchor against entropic disturbances, emitting PSI energy and maintaining connections to Space II that counteract entropy at its source.

The World Trees are living bridges between the Pre-Cosmos and the current universe. Yggdrasil, the Primeval Tree rooted in Odrodir in Greenland, is the most significant World Tree for humanity -- and she is simultaneously a functional node of the Long Row, a producer of the Mistletoe Blossoms that enable Driver space travel, and the being who produced David terGorden, the central Spectrum and the key to the system's reactivation. The Einzige Urbaum (Only Primeval Tree), from which all World Trees descend, represents the deepest root of the Pre-Cosmos's legacy in the current universe.

Other known World Trees include the Tau Ulema on Rorqual (Booklet 058) and the Psi Ulema on Glimmer (Booklet 078).

The Space Roads

The Space Roads (German: Weltraumstrassen) are a galaxy-spanning network of PSI-based interstellar transit corridors created by the Ancients as part of the Long Row's infrastructure. These n-dimensional channels through Space II connect World Trees, Space-Time Stroboscope nodes, and key locations across the Milky Way. They enable instantaneous matter transmission without the catastrophic entropy acceleration caused by Kaiser Force. The Space Roads are described as "tunnels that one enters with a single step and is already a thousand light-years further along" (Booklet 066). They originate from the Pre-Cosmos and are among the most ancient structures in the current universe.

The Steerers

The Steerers (German: Lenker) are cosmic plant-beings created by the Ancients to coordinate the Long Row across cosmic time. They are the operational overseers of the Pre-Cosmos's legacy in the current universe. Luther Straightwire, the Lenker of the Old Forest, is the most prominent active Steerer -- a plant-being disguised as a human who reveals the full history of the Pre-Cosmos to David at the Old Forest (Booklet 094). The system "created by the Ancients and maintained by Steerers to combat entropy" (Booklet 058) defines the Steerers' role as custodians of an infrastructure that originates in the Pre-Cosmos.

The Old Forest

The Old Forest (German: Alter Wald) is a solar-system-sized collective consciousness composed entirely of inactive Steerers who have merged over eons into a single, vast group mind. The Old Forest is the Pre-Cosmos's living brain in the current universe -- the reservoir of collective intelligence from which all strategic decisions about the Long Row's maintenance emanate. It controls the Reality Switch, orchestrates the Duel of Dreams, and offers humanity a trial rather than the annihilation the Entities have threatened (Booklets 094, 097).

The Buds of the Tree

The Buds of the Tree (German: Knospen des Baumes) are pre-cosmic sentient plant intelligences -- offspring or extensions of the Ancients -- charged with active ecological engineering across the galaxy. They deploy Cosmic Spores, reshape planetary ecologies, and maintain galactic equilibrium. Their cultural practices, including the Death Song and the Return Dream, carry the memory of the Pre-Cosmos forward into the current universe. Named Buds include Schon-Duft ("Beautiful Scent") and Hell-Blute ("Bright Blossom").

The Genetic Spores of the Ancients

The Genetic Spores of the Ancients (German: Genetiksporen der Uralten) are described as "the origin of life that the Einzige Urbaum wants to restore." These spores carried the Ancients' genetic programming across the death of the Pre-Cosmos and into the new universe, seeding it with the World Trees, the Buds of the Tree, and the biological infrastructure of the Long Row. The Cosmic Spores that recur throughout the saga -- healing damaged worlds, restoring ecological balance, and transforming Earth in the finale -- are the modern descendants of these original Pre-Cosmic genetic spores.

The Spectra

The Spectra are nine cosmic beings designed by the Ancients as the activation mechanism for the Long Row. The Ancients understood that a passive anti-entropy system would eventually degrade and require renewal. They therefore designed a distributed key: nine living beings, each carrying a fragment of the cosmic code needed to reignite the system. When the nine Spectra unite, they create the White Star, which serves as the activation key for the Long Row. David terGorden is one of the nine Spectra, and his quest to find and unite with the other eight -- a quest that spans the saga's final arc -- is the Pre-Cosmos's most direct intervention in the current universe.

Connection to Anti-Entropy

The Pre-Cosmos's destruction by an entropy catastrophe is the reason the Intercosmic Anti-Entropy System exists. The Ancients built the Long Row specifically because they had experienced firsthand what happens when entropy is allowed to overwhelm a cosmos. Their approach was not to fight entropy through brute force but to build a living, self-renewing system of organic countermeasures that would survive the transition between universes and operate indefinitely.

This approach stands in direct contrast to Kaiser Force technology, which achieves faster-than-light travel by tearing open Space II through brute technological means. Kaiser Force accelerates entropy -- the very force that destroyed the Pre-Cosmos -- and thereby threatens to repeat the catastrophe that annihilated the Ancients' universe. The saga's central technological conflict between Kaiser Force and the organic Space Roads is, at its deepest level, a conflict between a technology that repeats the Pre-Cosmos's fatal mistake and an infrastructure designed to prevent that mistake from ever recurring.

The Ancients' anti-entropy design philosophy is consistent and comprehensive:

The Pre-Cosmos's entropy catastrophe is not merely a backstory element. It is the cosmological constant against which the entire saga is measured. Every deployment of Kaiser Force, every Gray Hole that forms, every world devastated by entropy acceleration -- all of these echo the Pre-Cosmos's destruction and carry the implicit warning that the current universe could follow the same path.

The Pre-Cosmos and the Barrier Between Life Forms

One of the Pre-Cosmos's most provocative legacies is a cosmological schism that defines the current universe: the barrier between plant and carnivorous life. The glossary states that "the barrier that has separated plant and carnivorous life since the fall of the Pre-Universe is becoming fragile." This implies that in the Pre-Cosmos, no such barrier existed. The First World was a cosmos of pure plant intelligence, without predation, without carnivorous competition, without the division between species that consume and species that are consumed.

The emergence of carnivorous life in the current cosmos is therefore presented as a consequence of the Pre-Cosmos's destruction -- a cosmic wound, a loss of the original harmony. The entire saga can be read as a struggle to heal this wound: the Long Row's organic infrastructure represents the plant civilization's attempt to maintain its values in a cosmos that no longer naturally supports them, while Kaiser Force represents the carnivorous, extractive, predatory approach to existence that the Pre-Cosmos did not contain.

That this barrier is "becoming fragile" suggests that the saga's events -- David's quest, the reactivation of the Long Row, the ecological transformation of Earth by Cosmic Spores -- are beginning to dissolve the division between plant and carnivorous life, moving the current cosmos closer to the Pre-Cosmos's original state of harmony.

Role in the Saga

The Pre-Cosmos provides the cosmological foundation for the entire narrative arc of Die Terranauten. Without the Pre-Cosmos, the saga is a story of corporate warfare, political intrigue, and Driver rebellions. With it, every conflict acquires cosmic stakes, every artifact carries the weight of a dead universe, and every character's choices ripple through a cosmological architecture that predates the Big Bang.

The Pre-Cosmos as Cosmic Memory

The Pre-Cosmos is not forgotten in the current universe. It persists as memory -- encoded in the Connex Crystal, preserved in the Old Knowledge, carried in the Genetic Spores of the Ancients, echoed in the Old Forest's collective consciousness, and imprinted in the Sleeping Information that the Steerers plant in key individuals across generations. The Pre-Cosmos is the universe's oldest memory, and the saga's plot is driven by the effort to remember, understand, and act upon what it teaches.

The Pre-Cosmos as Warning

The Pre-Cosmos's destruction by entropy serves as the ultimate cautionary tale. When Luther Straightwire reveals the Pre-Cosmos's history to David at the Old Forest (Booklet 094), he is delivering not merely a lecture but a warning: what happened before can happen again. Kaiser Force technology is the current cosmos's equivalent of whatever destroyed the Pre-Cosmos. The Entities' Final Strike is proposed because they see humanity repeating the catastrophic pattern. David's mission to reactivate the Long Row is, in essence, the mission to heed the warning that the Pre-Cosmos's death represents.

The Pre-Cosmos as Promise

The Pre-Cosmos also represents a promise: that harmony is possible. The Erste Welt -- the First World of unity and harmony -- is not merely a historical fact but an aspiration. The True Heritage of the Ancients is the goal of restoring that original harmony. The Cosmic Spores that transform Earth in the saga's finale (Booklet 099) are the most tangible expression of this promise: the Pre-Cosmos's genetic legacy, arriving billions of years late, to begin healing the cosmos the Ancients lost.

The Narrative Arc of Pre-Cosmic Revelation

The Pre-Cosmos is revealed to the saga's characters -- and to the reader -- in a carefully staged progression:

Key Pre-Cosmic Artifacts and Structures in the Current Cosmos

The following table summarizes all known remnants, descendants, and instruments of the Pre-Cosmos that persist in the current universe:

The Pre-Cosmos in the Saga's Themes

Nature vs. Technology

The Pre-Cosmos embodies the saga's deepest argument about the relationship between organic systems and technological exploitation. The Pre-Cosmos was a universe of plant intelligence, governed by symbiosis and harmony. Its destruction came from entropy -- the same force that Kaiser Force technology now accelerates in the current cosmos. The entire saga can be read as a meditation on whether the current universe will follow the organic, cooperative path the Ancients designed for it or the extractive, destructive path that destroyed the Pre-Cosmos.

The Circle of Cosmic Time

The Pre-Cosmos establishes that cosmic history is cyclical, not linear. A universe was born, flourished, produced intelligence, and was destroyed. Its inhabitants seeded the next universe with the tools to prevent a repeat. That next universe is now threatened by the same force. The resolution requires a being -- David terGorden -- to reactivate the systems the previous universe's inhabitants built. The species that nearly destroyed the Ancients' legacy also produces the individual who saves it. This circularity is the saga's most profound cosmological statement: the universe is a repeating pattern of creation, destruction, and renewal, and the Ancients understood this pattern deeply enough to build systems that work across universal cycles.

The Absent Architect

The Pre-Cosmos is never experienced directly. No character visits it, no flashback depicts it, no narrative sequence takes place within it. It is known only through its remnants and its legacy. This absence is itself thematic. The Pre-Cosmos represents the idea that the deepest truths about reality are not things that can be directly observed but things that must be inferred from their effects. The World Trees, the Space Roads, the Long Row, the Connex Crystal, the Reality Switch -- all of these are the Pre-Cosmos speaking through the structures it left behind. The dead universe's voice is the living infrastructure of the current one.

Sacrifice as Design Principle

The Ancients designed a cosmos in which the systems sustaining reality require sacrifice to operate. The Spectra must unite through self-sacrifice. The Steerers sacrifice their individuality to merge into the Old Forest. The Buds of the Tree sacrifice themselves to transform Renegades into World Trees. David must sacrifice himself in the Duel of Dreams to trigger the Spectra's unification. This is not a design flaw -- it is the Pre-Cosmos's core legacy. A cosmos maintained by selfish beings would inevitably be exploited and destroyed. By requiring selflessness as the activation condition for the Long Row, the Ancients ensured that their infrastructure could only be perpetuated by beings worthy of it.

Appearances

The Pre-Cosmos is referenced, its history revealed, or its remnants play significant roles in the following booklets:

Related Terminology

Related Concepts

• Ancients -- The intelligent plant civilization that inhabited the Pre-Cosmos
• Long Row / Intercosmic Anti-Entropy System -- The anti-entropy infrastructure the Ancients built to survive the Pre-Cosmos's destruction
• Spectra -- The nine activation beings designed by the Ancients
• White Star -- The formation created by the unified Spectra
• Connex Crystal -- The crystallized knowledge of the Pre-Cosmos
• Old Knowledge -- The accumulated wisdom preserved in the Connex Crystal
• Reality Switch -- Memory slag from the Pre-Universe; orchestrator of the Duel of Dreams
• Yggdrasil -- The Primeval Tree; a surviving Pre-Cosmic node
• Einzige Urbaum -- The Only Primeval Tree; root of all World Trees
• World Trees -- The distributed nodes of the Long Row, grown from Pre-Cosmic spores
• Steerers -- Cosmic plant-beings created by the Ancients as custodians
• Old Forest -- The collective consciousness of inactive Steerers
• Buds of the Tree -- Pre-cosmic sentient plant intelligences maintaining galactic balance
• Space Roads -- The Ancients' galaxy-spanning transit network
• Space-Time Stroboscope -- Node technology generating transit fields along the Space Roads
• Cosmic Spores -- Living descendants of the Pre-Cosmos's Genetic Spores
• Genetic Spores of the Ancients -- The original biological agents that seeded the new cosmos
• Ratatosk -- The entropy-feeding saboteur that threatens the Pre-Cosmos's legacy
• Kaiser Force -- The technology that repeats the entropy catastrophe that destroyed the Pre-Cosmos
• Entities -- Supercivilizations defending the Pre-Cosmos's infrastructure
• Final Strike -- The Entities' threatened destruction of humanity for damaging the Pre-Cosmos's systems
• Duel of Dreams -- The metaphysical trial orchestrated by Pre-Cosmic instruments
• Erste Welt -- The First World of harmony and unity
• True Heritage of the Ancients -- The aspiration to restore the Pre-Cosmos's original harmony
• Sleeping Information -- Encoded knowledge from the Pre-Cosmos's custodians
• Heir of Power -- David's prophesied role as the Ancients' agent in the current cosmos
• Drivers -- Humans who navigate Space II through PSI symbiosis with Mistletoe Blossoms -- the organic, Pre-Cosmic-compatible method of space travel
• Paracletic Madonna -- The entity whose salvation in the Duel of Dreams validates the Pre-Cosmos's design
• David terGorden -- The central Spectrum, Heir of Power, and the Pre-Cosmos's chosen instrument of cosmic renewal

See Also

• Ancients
• Long Row
• Intercosmic Anti-Entropy System
• Spectra
• Connex Crystal
• Reality Switch
• Yggdrasil
• Old Forest
• David terGorden
• Luther Straightwire
• Space Roads
• Cosmic Spores
• Ratatosk
• Kaiser Force
• Entities
• 094 - The Elderwood
• 096 - Planet of Illusions
• 098 - Duel of Dreams
• 099 - The Eco-Shock

The Pre-Cosmos is referenced in at least 13 of the 99 booklets of Die Terranauten and is cross-referenced on over 80 enriched wiki pages throughout the vault. It is the saga's invisible foundation -- the dead universe whose living legacy shapes every structure, every conflict, and every destiny in the current cosmos. The Pre-Cosmos teaches that universes are mortal, that entropy is the eternal enemy, and that the only defense against cosmic death is the patient, selfless work of building systems that outlast the civilizations that create them. The Ancients are gone. Their universe is ash. But the World Trees still grow, the Space Roads still carry travelers, the Cosmic Spores still heal damaged worlds, and the Spectra still seek one another across the galaxy -- all because, before the Big Bang, a civilization of intelligent plants looked at the approaching destruction of everything they knew and chose to build something that would survive.