All inhabitants of the Pardus universe are speechless: What began a few days ago as small fluctuations in the energy-fields of several clusters, leading to minor annoyances for energy well operators, has increased to a full-grown and universe-wide "energy-earthquake" with major shifts and rips in the space-time continuum. Scientists can offer no explanation - probably no similar event has taken place since the big bang. And as the big bang can be traced back to a certain point in time, a new event of related proportions - which the scientific community has coined "The Aperture" - can be extrapolated to culminate at an exact date in about two weeks from now.

Around the same time the fluctuations started, signs of new, unprecedented lifeforms had been reported from the universe's borders. What sounded like stories of gory horror-creatures invented to scare children had not been taken seriously at first. This negligence has allowed some of the new species to evolve and expand across the whole universe at an enormous rate, posing a threat to all space-faring lifeforms. For the moment, this threat is relatively minor, but who knows what will fall upon us next. Astro-biologists speak of "Hyper-Evolution", opening a new, fruitful branch of science for the coming centuries - if those centuries are actually going to take place.

While many cults and sects already have declared the impending collapse of the Pardus universe (raking in credits from the wave of new aspirants), others are glad to be alive to witness an event never experienced before. We have no other option than to wait, hope, and see how The Aperture is going to turn out.