The Box

Well I'll be damned

— A very confused pilot

Drifting at the edge of the darkness north of Quantan is a massive black cube. Its sides are each exactly 12 square miles, and its surface is perfectly smooth and completely indestructible.

Appearance

The Box is made of an unknown and effectively indestructible substance. It is the blackest of black, absorbing 99.9% of heat transferred to it, yet somehow remaining cool to the touch. A tiny fragment of the stuff was removed from the cube via high-powered lasers. The shard's elemental signature was nonexistent. Even when using advanced atomic photography methods instruments came up with nothing but blackness. The shard is now held in the grand vault of the Federation under heavy guard.
Every 12 minutes The Box pulses with a bright blue light. It was through this strange beacon that it was first located. When an object hotter than 96 degrees Fahrenheit contacts its surface the same blue light emanates from the area being touched. This light fades over the course of an hour. Those walking on The Box's surface leaving behind a glowing trail of footprints.
The cube drifts in an area of The Darkness that is without gravity. Despite its small size, it has a significant gravitational pull, its gravity is suspiciously perfect for humans and similar lifeforms. The corners of The Box are sharp, making the process of moving around very unpleasant as everything flits 90 degrees before normalizing.

Surface Annomilies

From their instruments in orbit around The Box, The Federation has detected a number of strange events on the surface of the object. Movements at the edge of the satalights range. Only one of these events was caught fully on camera. The foggy footage was taken by a rover on the void-facing side of the cube, it showed part of The Box's surface rising up in great pillars. They sat in the air for about 10 minutes glowing a dull red before receding once more.

Under the Crust

15 years ago scientists studying The Box made a shocking discovery. When they took an infrared scan of the object they picked up on thousands of heat signatures moving inside. These blobs of heat looked to be millions of degrees. Each area of heat was about 8 feet tall and 3 feet wide.
This discovery spawned a great swath of theories about what might be inside the cube. Some believe that they are living creatures. Those of the less whimsical mindset think the box is filled with some kind of plasma and that the infrared scan only picked up on the hottest areas, the rest of the heat being absorbed by the strange material on The Box's crust.

The Truth

Under the surface of the box is a metropolis. A city inhabited by the strangest of creatures. Entities of godlike intelligence and of perfect form. They are the fifth race, the lords of the void, creators, puppeteers. From their alien city, they watch over the cosmos, tracking everything, occasionally toying. Their goals are unknowable, their plans inconceivable, their motives mind-breaking. They will come at the end of time, they are our rulers, they shall take the faithful with them, join us and live forever!!