Ask and you shall know.
You wish to know of the shadow? Of the great thing, slowly drifting from the void? What is it, you ask. Is it a god, coming to judge your pitiful lives? A collision of planets, drawn together under the pull of gravity, travelling endlessly through the void? Or is it false? A trick of light, a flaw of the system? Surely something so big could not exist, even in this endless universe? But no. It is real. It is far larger than you know. And it is a made thing. Yes. That monolith was built. Who by? I…. don’t know. No one knows.
It is a ship. Actually, it is THE Ship. Nothing created before or after it can hope to match its splendor, its power, its…. Everything. It is the home of countless souls, and has taken countless more with but a push of a button. It has traveled from one corner of the universe to another, and has observed galactic phenomenon thought impossible. Of course, it itself is impossible. It has technologies of a kind never dreamed of by your race; gravity manipulators that can pull apart a sun, energy weapons that can reduce great civilizations to less than dust. Oh? Now you fear? Don’t worry. Its Crew, for the most part, are peaceful, and would never activate these weapons apart from in times of great need.
The Crew? A ragtag band, a hundred billion strong, of a hundred different species. Some, like the Bridge Kind, know part of the truth of their home, and control its power to explore, to help others in need. Others, like the Deep Barbarians, don’t know that they live aboard a construct, and toil in ignorance. All work together to keep their home running - but The Ship would run without them. It has a mind of its own, ancient beyond logic, all knowing and all seeing. If there are any that I, in all my wisdom, would bow to without protest, it is them. And yet they care for nothing but maintaining himself. It is The Crew that truly pilot the ship, choose its path through the stars.
So why is it here? Perhaps they are merely passing by, another stop in an endless journey. Perhaps they have come to meet you, to share what secrets they can to better yourself with. Or perhaps it waits, knowing of some great calamity unseen by you. When all is dead or dying, it shall come, to swallow your worlds. They shall offer a choice. Join The Crew, join The Ship, join one of the greatest unknowns in all dimensions… Or, die. To the cold of the universe, the ravages of time. Only The Ship endures. It always will.
If you are to board it, I ask - yes, ironic - that you bring me with you. I wish to see The Ship with my own eyes, to feel its metal beneath my feet, to hear the thrum of its reactor. It would be like nothing else. For its The Ship. Nothing compares. It is The Ship.