The Galanthi is an alien species whose arrival reshaped the fate of two eras: a dying future Earth and Victorian London. In the future, twenty Galanthi crossed portals into a world ravaged by human conflict, their spores awakening parts of human minds so they could comprehend Galanthi language and technology. They bonded with scientists, created project stations, and offered the possibility of salvation. But humanity fractured around them. The Planetary Defense Coalition believed the Galanthi could save the world, while the FreeLife Army sought to drive them out. FreeLife bombed the stations and killed nineteen of the twenty creatures. The last Galanthi endured torture, its bonded scientists hung above it in death. When the PDC and FreeLife clashed over whether to kill it, the Galanthi chose to leave — passing through Zephyr Navine in her final moments before flying into the portal and vanishing.
On August 3rd, 1896, that same Galanthi appeared over London. It flew across the city and released a bright‑coloured exhaust, scattering spores that touched countless people. Some fainted; others awakened with extraordinary abilities. One spore touched Amalia True just after she drowned herself, placing Zephyr Navine’s consciousness inside her body. Maladie alone remembered the event, claiming she had seen God place His wreath upon her. The Galanthi’s spores created the phenomenon of the Touched — supernatural abilities emerging only within London, with no cases reported elsewhere. Amalia later told Dr. Horatio Cousens that aliens from the future had given them powers, though she noted that the spores did not usually grant random abilities or affect everyone they hit. Horatio suspected that Amalia herself was meant to be the empathic guide they had been waiting for.
By 1899, the Galanthi had become an object of fear and fascination beneath the city. Lavinia Bidlow oversaw an excavation in underground tunnels, where workers — including Elisabetta Cassini, scarred from Dr. Edmund Hague’s experiments — dug around a bright‑coloured orb. Hague monitored its pulses, insisting it was a chrysalis rather than an egg. Lavinia feared it was hatching and ordered it killed, but Hague believed it could still be used to their benefit. Meanwhile, Mary Brighton’s song — heard only by the Touched — carried the Galanthi’s voice. Myrtle Haplisch deciphered the hidden message: “Amalia, my lonely soldier… come before the dark.” Harriet Kaur realized the words were not Mary’s, but someone speaking through her.
Amalia eventually reached the Galanthi’s chamber deep beneath the Royal Military base. She found the creature trapped within the earth and confronted it with anger and despair, demanding to know why it had left them without guidance. She asked what went wrong, whether she had failed, and why it had chosen someone “so broken.” The Galanthi responded with pulses that shook the tunnels, sending Amalia into a rippling of past and future memories. It appeared to her in the form of Myrtle Haplisch and said: “Oh, Amalia. This is a long time from this little cave. This, I will need you to forget.” Moments later, masked men attacked, and Amalia escaped with the help of Elisabetta Cassini. The Galanthi remained buried, wounded, and waiting — the silent architect of the Touched, the last survivor of a future war, and the being whose message now drives Amalia toward the darkness beneath London.
